


Walking on the Battlements

by redhoodedwolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And They All Lived Happily Ever After i promise, Angst, Blood and Injury, Fluff, Hale Family Feels, Hospitals, Inspired By S3, M/M, POV Derek Hale, Warning: Kate Argent, With A Twist, basically taking s1 canon knowledge and mixing it with s3 elements, fairytale, pretend cora and peter don't exist sorry sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26669773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoodedwolf/pseuds/redhoodedwolf
Summary: ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD EVACUATED IN BEACON HILLS, CALIF DUE TO SUPERNATURAL THREATHe recalled that as the first headline that made national news. It was only the first. As things continued to happen, the story took on a life of its own. Derek assumed only the people of Beacon Hills knew the truth of what was happening, but the world gossiped as they watched the town in a bubble slowly shrink.Gossip, like how the home used to be full of happiness and a normal family, but when the beast arrived, cloaked in shadow, one night, all of that light was snuffed out. Children and teenagers who feared nothing crept into the abandoned house on a dare and emerged the next morning mute, blind, and bleeding, a red ring around their necks.The house the beast had taken over, causing the mass-evacuation of families out of the once-peaceful neighborhood, was Laura’s target. She wanted to investigate. She had told Derek that after a good night’s rest, they would go together in the morning.Derek knew, because Laura was his sister and Alpha, that she would not keep her promise.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 13
Kudos: 99





	Walking on the Battlements

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I might never finish this fic, but here it is! Please enjoy!

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Laura repeated as their car came to a stop on the side of the road. 

“Yes, I did,” Derek asserted, once again. 

“I know that being back here—”

Derek cut her off with a sharp, “It’s fine,” and even though she could hear the lie in his heartbeat, she didn’t comment. 

To avoid her concerned eyes, he stared instead at the squat, long L-shaped building they had parked next to. There was a sign near the entrance that dignified it as a hotel, but Derek felt the word “hotel” needed to be reserved for places that charged at least $50 a night for a room. 

Better than staying in the nature-reclaimed burnt-out husk of their old home, but not by much. 

Laura sighed, and Derek tensed, waiting for another lecture, but she just shut the car engine off and then opened her door. Derek silently exhaled, glad for the reprieve even temporarily, and followed suit. He grabbed his duffel bag from the trunk before slamming it shut and trudging after Laura towards the Beacon Inn. 

When Laura opened the front glass door to enter, the attendant at the front desk nearly fell out of their chair in shock. They also smelled frightened, which normally would have been odd, but considering what had been happening in Beacon Hills, he wasn’t surprised. 

“Can we get two rooms for, ah, let’s say two nights. We can add more if needed later, right?” Laura asked, pointedly ignoring the flailing of the desk manager as they righted themself.

They looked apprehensive, eyes flickering back and forth between the two, and Derek tried to relax his face as much as possible, because Laura had once told him he had a bit of a bitch-face that looked less bitch and mores serial-killer. This was the complete wrong time to emanate killer-vibes. “Are you sure you want to stay here? Beacon Hills isn’t—”

“Keys, please,” Derek ordered, not wanting to get into another conversation over this.

“Right away.”

Before long, Laura was handed two keys (actual keys, on fobs, what a shithole this was) and pointed in the direction of their next-door rooms. 

“Is there somewhere close for dinner?” Laura asked, dropping one of the key rings into Derek’s outstretched palm. 

The manager swallowed thickly. “The diner next door should still be open. They used to be 24-hours, but—”

“Thank you,” Derek once gain cut them off and wrapped a hand around Laura’s arm, tugging her back out of the door. 

“Derek,” Laura chastised. “That was rude.”

“We’re giving them business,” Derek countered, staring across the street at the still-illuminated diner. “That’s the nicest thing we can do for this town right now.”

The sun was just dipping below the horizon, but Derek and Laura had forgone a lunch break, driving straight on through to reach Beacon Hills before dark, so he was starving. 

Laura pursed her lips and looked unhappy with his answer, but he knew she couldn’t argue much either. He doubted there was anyone else staying at that, um, _hotel_. And they were probably going to be some of the few patrons this diner had today, maybe even in the whole week. 

Like the desk attendant, the server glanced up as they entered and dropped their jaw, nearly losing their grip on the mop in their hands. 

“You guys are still open, right?” Laura asked, forcing cheeriness into her tone, and it was her turn to drag Derek further into the establishment and shove him onto the seat opposite hers in a bright red booth. “We’re _famished_.”

Noise started up from the kitchen, and Derek smothered a smirk with his hand. They had clearly already powered down, but the sign hanging on the door had declared kitchen closure at 8PM due to mandatory curfew, and the Hales had nearly an hour to spare. 

The server fumbled with the mop, balancing it up against the counter, and held up a finger, indicating they would return in a moment, and then hustled into the kitchen where they shared a whisper-shouting match with the cook. 

Derek plucked a menu from the holder at the table and started examining it, noting the recent changes made to it. It was a limited menu, to say the least. Burgers, eggs, bacon, pancakes (without whipped cream), fries, and salad. That was the extent, and Derek wondered if they could even get _that_ , going by the distressed noises in the kitchen.

“Should have brought our own,” Derek mumbled. Laura kicked him under the table.

“The whole reason everything is shit is because—”

Derek lowered his menu and narrowed his eyes at his older sister. “Laura, it is not our fault.”

“No,” she waved a hand. “Maybe not. But maybe it could have been prevented. Maybe—” she cut herself off and shook her head.

Derek swallowed and raised his menu, so he didn’t have to look at her. Yeah, maybe.

Maybe, if their entire family hadn't been burned to death in a fire nearly a decade ago, their mother would still be the Alpha protecting the territory of Beacon Hills. And maybe, if she was still here, this evil would never have cast its plague over the town.

Maybe. Probably. 

But that wasn’t Laura’s fault. 

It was Derek’s, to be truthful. The fire, the leaving, all of it. But he could never explain that to Laura, never admit to her what he’d done. 

So when she’d told him a few days ago she was going to drive back to Beacon Hills, to check things out, Derek said he would be coming with. Because it was his right just as much as hers to fix what was wrong. 

Not that they knew what or who was doing the wrong-doings, but he and Laura were determined to find out and then get back out as quickly as possible. 

“Is burgers and fries okay?” the nervous server returned, offering, and Laura beamed at them and plucked the menu from Derek’s fingers. 

“Sounds great, thanks.”

The burgers were quickly whipped up, and the frozen fries dumped into a freshly boiling vat of oil to give the taste of fresh and not day-old. But Derek wasn’t going to complain, especially not with Laura within earshot.

The food was gone in five minutes. Laura paid with cash, thanked their server again, and then left with Derek in tow. 

The sun had disappeared behind the hills now, and it was massively colder out than it had been twenty minutes ago. Derek wrapped his jacket further around himself to combat the biting winds, and he noted Laura doing the same.

“This isn’t natural,” she murmured, digging her room key out of her pocket as they approached a door declaring 3A. Derek was next to her in 3B, but he followed her into her room, not ready to let her out of his sight. “Something is doing this.”

Derek nodded in agreement, closing the door behind them and flipping the lock and then sliding the chain across. It would do nothing to stop an actual threat, but it would give them pseudo peace of mind. 

Laura climbed onto the bed and sat up against the headboard. Derek seated himself on the edge, facing her.

She had her tablet in hand, and Derek knew she was reading back all of the accounts of horrors over the last three months.

ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD EVACUATED IN BEACON HILLS, CALIF DUE TO SUPERNATURAL THREAT

He recalled that as the first headline that made national news. It was only the first. As things continued to happen, the story took on a life of its own. Derek assumed only the people of Beacon Hills knew the truth of what was happening, but the world gossiped as they watched the town in a bubble slowly shrink. 

Gossip, like how the home used to be full of happiness and a normal family, but when the beast arrived, cloaked in shadow, one night, all of that light was snuffed out. Children and teenagers who feared nothing crept into the abandoned house on a dare and emerged the next morning mute, blind, and bleeding, a red ring around their necks. 

A curfew had been enacted a week after the sheriff’s department had declared the beast a serial murderer, leaving four victims in the woods, and only one survived. Businesses were forced to close early, after school activities canceled. Anyone under sixteen had to be home by five and supervised by an adult eighteen or older. Everyone had to be housed by nine. 

The killings stopped for a while, but then the torture began, and that was when they knew this wasn’t something human. Sharp drops in temperature overnight, killing plants and crops. Animals went missing and were never seen again. Odd, rune-like markings began to appear, spray painted on buildings and cars. 

The entire town had itself on lockdown, but there was nothing else they could do. 

The house the beast had taken over, causing the mass-evacuation of families out of the once-peaceful neighborhood, was Laura’s target. She wanted to investigate. She had told Derek that after a good night’s rest, they would go together in the morning.

Derek knew, because Laura was his sister and Alpha and (probably mistakenly) loved him more than herself and felt guilty over abandoning Hale territory, that she would not keep her promise.

“Go ahead to your room, get some rest. I’ll bring coffee and breakfast tomorrow, if I can find some,” she joked. Her heart beat never stuttered, but they both had learned how to talk around lies as children.

Derek squeezed her ankle, unlatched the door, and slipped out into the brisk cold. Even the three seconds it took to enter his own room left him, a werewolf, shivering. 

He hoped the workers in the diner had short commutes and warm car heating systems. 

Derek closed the door behind him and leaned against it. He counted to ten, and then fiddled with the locks. 

He shucked his jacket, unlaced his boots and toed them off, and then pulled back the covers on the bed. 

And then he waited, and waited, and waited. 

And when 3A’s door clicked almost silently closed, Derek waited another three minutes before he stood, laced up his boots, shouldered on his jacket, and left 3B, nose to the air, following Laura’s scent. 

There weren’t even patrol cars roaming the streets to enforce curfew, so Derek had no one to dodge. He hoped the cold wind would stop Laura from catching on to his following, and he suspected it did. It was difficult enough to follow her scent. At least he had a general idea of where he was heading, though it had been a long time.

By the time he found the abandoned neighborhood, he didn’t need to guess anymore which house was taken over by this beast. 

The house was a normal-looking house, but Derek could sense the evil presence within. It was something he had never felt the likes of before, and just stepping into the overgrown grass and weeds that bracketed the house had him quaking with fear.

The front door was open, but he could not see Laura.

He strained to hear the sound of her heartbeat over the whistling of the wind. There was a creak of floorboards, but that was the only noise to break through. 

Derek stepped onto the ledge leading into the house, and as soon as he did, noise ceased to exist. It was like he’d been dunked underwater. He could only hear his heartbeat. He felt a rush of air behind him and turned to see the door silently close at his back.

Derek shifted, letting the wolf overcome him, his vision sharpening and adjusting to the dark. 

For an evil home, it looked extremely like his and Laura’s back in New York. Directly in front of him was a stairwell that lead to a second story. To the left was a dining room, to the right a kitchen, and underneath the stairs was a sitting area. 

Nothing looked caked in dust, from what Derek could see. It was almost like the house kept up with itself. Or whatever beast inhabited it liked its spaces clean. 

Derek tried to catch Laura’s scent, but there was nothing. He flexed his claws and prepared for an attack.

There was no one in the kitchen, and no one in the dining room. He could see the sitting room was empty all but for a blue light blinking on the cable box beneath the TV, like it was malfunctioning. 

He cautiously headed for the stairs, sizing them up and trying to determine the best strategy should the threat come from above, until something made him pause. He pressed his hand against the wall that supported the stairwell, and a few feet down he felt the edge of a doorway. Derek found the handle and turned, finding it unlocked. It opened, and Derek had assumed he’d be looking into a storage closet full of cleaning supplies. Instead he found another stairwell, going down. This house had a basement. 

Derek felt around for a light switch and was surprised to find a hanging ball chain cord which he tugged, illuminating a light bulb above. The stairs were washed with light, but that was all that Derek could see from his angle. 

Derek caught a whiff of Laura’s scent down into the basement suddenly, like the light had removed the blocking haze around him, and he followed it. The stairs creaked as he descended slowly, eyes scanning back and forth, waiting for the beast to leap out at him. But no attack came by the time he hit the last stair. 

Instead, he found his Alpha chained to the ceiling, head fallen limp against her chest. He rushed to her, quickly lifting her head to check frantically for a pulse, as his hearing ability was still moot, and he exhaled heavily when he found one. 

She groaned, though he only knew because of the vibrations against his fingers, leaning her cheek into the press of his hand. There was something wet on her face, and Derek knew it was blood. 

“Laura,” he whisper-hissed, as he lowered one arm to wrap around the back of Laura’s thighs and lift her, so that the strain on her arms was relieved.

He thought he’d only been a few minutes behind her, but her evident relief at having her arms rush back with feeling made him think she must have gotten there much sooner, and had been hanging for some time.

Derek hadn’t even thought to check to see if she took the car.

“Laura,” he repeated her name as she whimpered, eyelids fluttering. He realized now in such close proximity he could hear her pitiful noises. It would be difficult to keep her elevated and work on dismantling the chains at the same time, so he made the quick decision to focus on waking her up.

“ _Der’k_ ,” Laura slurred as her eyes began to stay open for longer than a second, focusing on his face even as her gaze wavered. She tried to move her arms but cried out in pain.

Derek shushed her, because the monster who did this to her could be anywhere, and glanced up to see that the chains seemed to be coated in some kind of white powder.

“ _Mistletoe_ ,” he blurted out as he recognized it, having seen it in labeled jars hidden next to flowers of wolfsbane sealed tightly away in their childhood home, for emergencies only. 

Having not ingested the poison, Derek didn’t immediately fear for his sister’s life, but he knew even in a powdered form on skin it was an irritant, and after who knows how many minutes of it rubbing off of the chains and into her skin, and probably into whatever cuts the chains caused… He needed to get her down before it soaked into her blood stream and she was truly poisoned. 

It was hard to kill an Alpha with mistletoe, but that didn’t mean it would be a quick recovery either. And Derek needed to get them both out _right now_.

“Laura, Laura, I need you to wrap your legs around me so I can get you down, can you do that? Laura, look at me,” Derek pleaded.

She let out another moan, head slumping back against her chest, and Derek feared she’d passed out again but felt her legs slowly coiling around his waist. 

Derek had no time to worry about infecting himself. He used his one free hand to tear his shirt and wrap it haphazardly around his palm before reaching up to pull at the chains.

Even with the mistletoe, the metal was no match for werewolf strength powered by fear-based adrenaline, and the links slowly bent under his pulls. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the sound of snapping metal.

When it finally came, Derek was so relieved and busy catching Laura as her entire weight fell onto him that he almost missed the words spoken.

“Nice try, little wolf.”

Derek froze and clutched Laura tightly to him. She still had the shackles around her wrists and her body was heaving with deep breaths. Derek had failed to save her in time, but he would die before he let this monster take her from him, the last of his family. 

Derek snarled in the direction of the voice, but received only a chuckle in response. 

“Oh my, look how big your teeth are,” it mocked, and Derek was unsettled by the wavering of the voice, how it was impossible to pin down as anything similar to human. It was monstrous, through and through. 

“All the better to eat you with, _my dear_ ,” Derek countered with the childish tale’s line, to mask his fear.

“How flattering, _darling_ , but there will be no eating tonight.”

The beast moved into a beam of illumination cast across the base of the stairwell from the light at the top and Derek could see it was a cloaked figure, shorter than expected given the horrors it had committed, and its face was just a wall of black, a sea of nothingness under a black hooded cape. 

“Unless you’d like to sample a bit of mistletoe. Druid methods are vastly underrated,” the beast continued to taunt Derek as it moved out of the light and back into the shadows, circling him and Laura who was now crouched at his side, breathing steadier but no more prepared to fight.

“What do you want?” Derek asked, to try and stall for time. If Laura regained enough strength, they could at least make it out of the house, recuperate, and think of a strategy. “Why are you here, in Beacon Hills?”

“What a loaded question, Derek Hale.”

Derek shivered. The beast knew his name.

“But I’ll play your game,” the beast acquiesced, and Derek could hear its feet as it shuffled across the floor. “There are many things I want. Revenge. Power. _Fun_. Beacon Hills has everything I need to make that possible. There is a Nematon deep in the preserve. Did you know that, little Hale? It exuded so much energy that I had no choice but to use it, harness it, _invest_ in it.”

“The killings.” Derek murmured. “Sacrifices?”

“Of a sort,” the beast replied, and Derek hated how giddy the thing sounded. “But alas, there is only so much power a human can possess, and I was starting to get a little bored and had a bit of fun,” Derek assumed that hinted to the torturing, “until Alpha Hale knocked on my front door.”

There was an eagerness in the beast’s voice, and Derek wrapped his arms even tighter around his sister. His mind was starting to connect the dots, and he didn’t like the answer the equation was resolving to. 

“But see here, little brother came knocking too! So I think... I’m going to change the game here, Derek. The Alpha power means nothing to me, it is the raw-animistic power you werewolves possess that I need. And you have the added benefit of those beautiful blues,” Derek snarled as the beast suddenly crept forward into his space and then danced back at the snap of his jaws, “that hold so much pain. That emotion is just as important as an Alpha spark.”

Derek could see where this was going, and he glanced down at his side at Laura. Laura, his big sister, his Alpha, who stared up at him with wounded, flickering red eyes that begged him not to do what he was about to do. 

He had lost his entire family to a monster because of his selfish desires, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again.

“Take me instead,” Derek pleaded.

The shuffling stopped, somewhere off to Derek’s front right. “How chivalrous of you.”

“Derek...” Derek looked down at his sister and regretted that choice, seeing the pain in her eyes. “No, _don’t_.”

“If you promise not to hurt her, I will take her place,” Derek ground out between teeth, forcing his gaze away from begging Alpha eyes. “Use me, sacrifice me. But let her go free.”

The air in the room shifted, and suddenly there were lit candles surrounding them in a wide circle, giving Derek the ability to see the beast once more. The beast lowered its hand, like it had made a motion that created the light, and approached Derek. 

“I swear not to harm Laura Hale if you take her place here with me,” the monster declared, and it held a hand out to Derek. A very human gesture for a very inhumane being. 

Derek took hold of the gloved hand and squeezed it.

The air in the room shifted once more. The beast chuckled. The candles went out. Derek’s hand was suddenly empty. Laura shouted something, probably his name, but it was cut off abruptly and he blacked out.

He came to several seconds later, at least he assumed, and this time it was him chained with mistletoe-powdered metal to the ceiling of the basement, and Laura was nowhere to be seen. 

Derek could sense the beast was still hovering, so he demanded, “Where is she?”

“Safe, as promised.”

Derek closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. It would do Derek no good to assume the beast was lying; it would only fill him with further guilt. He hoped his sacrifice was worth it. 

He hoped death would be swift and painless, but he doubted it very much. 

He waited, and waited, and when nothing happened, he raised his head and looked at the beast in confusion. “Am I not to die?”

“Not tonight,” the beast responded. “There is more power to gain if I wait. The full moon after the next is a supermoon, so we will wait until then, when your wolf will be at its peak. I can be patient for that amount of power.” Derek started to feel the burn of the chains. “Can you?”

After a while of hanging in silence, the beast having disappeared between one blink and the next, the metal cuffs cut into his wrists, forcing him to plead with his body for the wounds to close faster than the mistletoe could encroach his blood stream.

The cloying silence returned, and Derek could feel it, like it was smoke surrounding him. It was not long after that analogy surfaced in his brain that he passed out from the heat and the pain.

* * *

Derek returned to himself in moments. He heard a voice, but not what words they spoke. He felt pain, and was gone.

Another instance, he woke as water was poured down his throat and he choked on it, and a voice, a different voice, spoke more words he could not understand in a comforting tone. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and he tried to speak, but then was out once more.

He felt searing pain throughout his body that forced his eyes open and a howl to spill out before his body sagged into sweet unconsciousness.

Finally, Derek forced his eyelids to open, and when he didn’t immediately feel pain, he sighed. He took stock of his body and realized that he was not where he was last. He was no longer chained with his arms above his head. They were at his sides, and he twitched his fingers and they brushed his legs. He was horizontal now, and lying on something quite comfortable, definitely not the cement floor of the basement. 

When he opened his eyes again, he registered how much brighter it was wherever he was now than the basement, and he had to blink spots form his vision. He tested his movement abilities and found that rather than constricted by chains, he was surrounded by a blanket that was twisted around his body, like he’d tossed and turned in a fitful night of sleep.

For a moment, he wondered if Laura had come to save the day, and now he was waking up in their “hotel” room after recovering from a fight he didn’t remember, successfully defeating the beast and saving Beacon Hills. And now they could go home.

But when he reached out his senses, he was hit with a wave of _bad, bad, bad_ , and he knew instinctively that he was still in that house.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

Derek startled, sitting up quickly and turning towards the cheery new voice that greeted him.

In the doorway that was next to a packed bookshelf was a human boy, a teenager, with brown hair cut short in a way that made his ears look too big, dressed in a striped hoodie and jeans. In his hands was a waterlogged dripping washcloth and a glass of ice water.

Derek suddenly felt insanely parched, but his confusion and skepticism overruled his sore throat.

“Who are you? Where am I? What happened to the beast?”

The teenager’s shoulder slumped and he approached with measured steps. “Oh boy, okay, let me just make sure your temperature is back to normal, and then I’ll explain.”

“ _No_ ,” Derek snarled, taking a defensive stance on the mattress. Because he was in a bed. He was in a bedroom, probably in the beast’s home. And this kid was, what, the thing’s lackey? “Explain _now_ ,” he demanded with a hint of fang.

The kid raised his hands in a defensive position, as much as he could with two handfuls, and a bit of the water from the glass sloshed out and drenched his stretched-out sleeve. “Okay, okay, that’s fair. Names are important. I’m Stiles. You’re Derek. The whole situation is a bit complicated but I’d really feel a whole lot better if you let me check you out, dude.”

Derek’s mind was reeling at the abrupt change in his situation. From chained to coddled. “Then uncomplicated it,” Derek hissed.

Stiles huffed out through his nose and stomped his foot, a little. “It’s— this isn’t—” He paused and took a deep breath. “You were poisoned by the mistletoe, it got into your bloodstream. You’ve been fighting off the infection for days, and it seems your fever has finally broke but I don’t _know_ because you won’t let me _check_.”

“Days?” Derek choked out. “How many?”

“Three. Today is day four, well, it will be night four tonight. It’s about eleven in the morning right now.”

Derek glanced around the room. He was lying in a full bed, a blanket now fallen across his legs, and there was a second bookshelf to complement the first, and across the room was a desk against the wall. A large window behind the headboard was streaming in the light that had assaulted Derek. 

“Where is this?”

“You’re on the second floor in an, uh, unused room. But I put fresh sheets on the bed for you, I promise, no dust mites for you,” Stiles joked. 

Derek squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his forehead. He was still not over the situation flip. “How did I get up here? The beast had me chained up in the basement. I figured I’d be there until it killed me.”

Stiles flinched at his words and stepped an inch closer. “Can I please check your temperature?”

Not sensing any threat from the human, Derek nodded. Stiles was at his side immediately, sitting on the edge of the bed, draping the cool cloth over Derek’s forehead and nudging the glass of water into his hand with another. 

Derek stared untrustingly at the glass, and the washcloth slipped down over his eyes.

Stiles huffed, adjusted the cool cloth, and took the glass back. “Not poisoned, I got it myself.” He took a sip from it and visibly swallowed, opening his mouth so that Derek could see he had nothing left in it. “See? Safe.”

Derek took the glass back and took a sip, and immediately tipped the entire glass back and downed it. If he had been out for over three days, his body was going to quickly be demanding food from him, because he doubted he’d had any. He had a flash of memory, of choking on water, and he snapped his gaze over to Stiles, who jumped at the sudden motion.

“Have you been taking care of me this whole time?”

Stiles nodded, looking sheepish. “There’s not much else I can do right now, but I could do that for you, so I did.” He raised a hand to Derek’s face and pressed the back of it against his cheeks. He hummed. “Still a bit warm.”

“Werewolves are warmer than humans,” Derek informed him, and then froze, realizing the boy might not know that was what he was.

But Stiles didn’t flinch, nodding at his statement. “True. Do you feel any residual pain from the poison?”

Derek took a moment to feel his body out, but then shook his head. “Tired, hungry, but not poisoned,” Derek replied.

Stiles looked relieved. “Great. I’ll go refill your glass and see what light snacks are in the kitchen to start you on until your stomach can handle more. Though with your wolf powers that’ll probably be tomorrow.”

That meant Derek would still be in this evil house come the next day. He remembered the beast mentioning the supermoon and wondered if this was just a different, much gentler, form of captivity.

“And the beast?” Derek asked as Stiles stood, one hand extended to pick up the glass discarded on the bedside table. The human froze, yet again, but reacted faster this time.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking at Derek with sad eyes. “I can’t stop it. When you got sick, I brought you up here myself, while it was gone, because you looked and smelled on the verge of death, and I’ve been locking you in the room with mountain ash every evening before it comes back.”

“So it leaves during the day?” Derek asked for clarification.

Stiles nodded, fiddling with the glass, running his fingers around the rim. “Something to do with the power of darkness, makes it strong enough to take form. So when the sun comes up, it leaves to recharge or something. I don’t fully understand it myself.”

“So what about you? I don’t remember there being anyone else in the house when Laura...” Derek cleared his throat. “Were you hiding?”

Stiles bit his bottom lip and shrugged. “As much as I could. There’s an attic right above us that’s a tiny triangular thing, but the beast, it always shuts me in there. No matter what room I try to hide in it always brings me there, but then I’m safe again to come out when the sun returns.”

“The beast hasn’t—”

Stiles shook his head violently, like he knew what Derek was asking before he’d even tried to find the proper words. He reached over and pulled the now warm washcloth from Derek’s forehead. 

“I am insurance,” Stiles croaked. “I am its hostage, the warning to the town to stay away, because if the safest family in Beacon Hills—” Stiles cut himself off with a sharp inhale. 

Derek tilted his head and waited until Stiles was ready to further explain. It was clear he was just a victim in all of this too, likely another sacrifice in waiting.

“The beast has my dad,” Stiles choked out, like the words physically pained him. “I don’t know where. I can’t leave the house, but if I try anything it says it will kill him.”

Derek knew the choice quite well. “We protect our family.”

Stiles nodded, sniffed, ran his sleeve over his face, and then faced Derek with a wobbly half-smile. “He’s the sheriff, you know. The symbol of Beacon Hills’ protection.”

The sheriff’s capture and disappearance was strategic. The beast was crafty. 

“I’m gonna get you that refill now,” Stiles said as he stood. “Be right back.”

He disappeared through the open doorway, and Derek could follow the sound of his footsteps as they descended the stairs. 

Derek turned to glance behind him, out the window. The abandoned neighborhood spread out in front of him behind slated blinds. There was an undisturbed line of mountain ash on the windowsill. 

* * *

After Derek ate some food and drank more water, he took a power nap and woke up feeling refreshed and energized. Stiles had continued to dote on him until he’d told the young man that he was going to try to sleep some more, so he wasn’t surprised to wake up alone. 

Derek stood from the bed, noting he was no longer wearing his boots. He also wasn’t wearing the same pants, either. And he was shirtless. Stiles must have somehow gotten his limp body into fresh clothes. He’d been so confused earlier with what was happening he hadn’t even looked down at himself. 

He wondered if his clothes had been too blood-stained to be salvageable, or if Stiles had somehow washed them. 

Until the beast came and took over the neighborhood, this house used to be owned by someone, and since Stiles was able to give him water with ice, the water must still be turned on. So perhaps there was a laundry room somewhere. 

Derek saw that it was afternoon now, but the sun was still shining. If Stiles was to be believed, which Derek was pretty convinced he could be, the beast would not return for a few more hours yet. He had time to explore the house he would be trapped in for a month and a half, unless he figured out a safe way to escape that didn’t endanger his sister (or Stiles, at this point) in the process.

He’d made a deal with a devil, and right now he had to abide by it. 

When Derek made it into the hall, he saw that it continued down to his left, two more closed doors against the same wall, and a third across the way. To the right was an open door, and Derek saw it was a bathroom. He flipped on the sink and splashed water over his face and then stared into the mirror. 

Outwardly, he looked fine and healed. His appearance was the same as he remembered, but he felt different inside, like an ache he couldn’t explain.

Right outside of the bathroom was the stairwell that lead down to the first floor. The lights were on in the house, as opposed to the pitch black of the first night. He could hear some movement below and called, “Stiles?” 

The movement paused. “Derek? You awake?”

There was no panic in Stiles’ voice, so he assumed the coast was clear. He walked down the stairs and spotted Stiles as he came around to the base and looked up at him. The human was smiling, slightly, which was likely the best happy expression he could muster right now. Derek certainly didn’t feel like smiling. He just nodded at Stiles.

“How are you feeling?” Stiles asked when Derek hit the bottom step. 

“Better,” Derek assured. “Thank you, again.”

Sties shrugged. “I do what I can,” was Stiles’ response. “Do you want to eat some more? There’s not much here that’s fresh. The freezer in the kitchen and the extra in the basement were packed with different frozen foods, so that’s what I’ve been picking at for a while.”

Derek did his best not to flinch at the mention of the basement. Had there been a freezer down there? 

“But the garden out back is pretty substantial,” Stiles continued on speaking, kindly pretending not to notice Derek’s hesitation. “So any fresh fruits and veggies I’ve been pulling from back there. The squash is surprisingly delicious.”

“So it... the backyard is safe?” Derek asked with trepidation.

Stiles gave him that half-smile again. “Yeah, it’s more so the land than the house that the beast has control over. Do you want to see?”

Derek shook his head. “Maybe later. Food sounds good.”

Stiles lead the way into the kitchen that Derek had initially canvased. Derek noted the garbage bin in the corner that did indeed look full of frozen dinner boxes. Stiles set down another glass of ice water on the counter next to Derek before he could get it himself. He’d been distracted cataloging everything he could about the house, now that it was daytime. 

It was a modest-sized kitchen with all the regular appliances, an old toaster on the counter next to a stack of cutting boards. The only items in the dish drainer next to the sink were silverware, forks and knives primarily, and an upside-down mug. 

There was a closed door next to the refrigerator, and Derek surmised that must go to the outside.

“What do you do during the day?” Derek asked Stiles, picking up the glass and taking a large gulp.

Stiles stuck his head out of the freezer to glance at him. “What do you mean?” He sounded nervous.

Derek shrugged and tried to look relaxed. He didn’t mean to interrogate; he was curious. “You’ve been stuck in this house for how long?”

“Um, three months.”

Derek didn’t wince, but he wanted to. Three months alone, stuck with only a monstrous beast who was using you as a hostage, and without any knowledge as to where your father was or how he was. Derek related deeply. 

“Months, then. If the beast is only here at night and you spend that time locked away, what do you do during the day if you can’t leave the house or backyard?”

Stiles looked less tense now that Derek had explained further, head diving back into the freezer. Derek could still hear him fine when he responded, “I clean a lot. Dust seems to accumulate quickly for some reason, so I usually tackle at least one room a day, and then rotate and work on the first one again once I’ve done them all. It keeps me calm, gives me something active to do so that I don’t lose my mind.”

Well, that answered Derek’s thoughts as to why the beast kept the house so clean. 

Stiles closed the freezer as he leaned back, a plastic red package of cooked chicken breasts in hand. He shook it in question, and Derek shrugged with a nod. Any food was better than no food, and grilled chicken would be light enough on the stomach, Derek hoped.

Derek leaned against the center island while Stiles hunted down a pair of plates and dumped two of the slightly frozen together chicken breasts onto one of them before popping it into the microwave. 

“The electricity still works, obviously.” Stiles gestured to the spinning, humming food. “So does the TV, so sometimes I’ll try and find something to watch, Only the basic cable channels, though, but that’s better than nothing. I can keep up with the news that way. I don’t have a cell phone or any way to communicate with anyone outside. The beast disconnected the landline, too, the one time I tried that and it found out. And then, like I mentioned, I’ll do some gardening. Weeds are growing like, well, _weeds_ out there, so that’s another easy task that I can let myself fall in to.”

Derek recalled the room he’d been nursed back to health in. “And there’s tons of books upstairs in that bedroom,” Derek added. “Do you read them?”

“Oh, I uh... some,” Stiles admitted. “I have ADHD and it seems a spot of dyslexia, so it’s kind of difficult to focus on that, right now. Stress makes it worse.” Stiles didn’t meet his eyes, like he was embarrassed to explain this to Derek.

“Do you take medicine?” Derek asked. 

Stiles scoffed, but his face morphed from annoyance into neutral calm when the microwave beeped. “Usually,” Stiles responded, flipping the breasts over on the plate with a fork to evenly heat both sides before closing the microwave and letting it hum once again. “Bit difficult to get to a pharmacy. I’m not insane, or anything,” Stiles rushed to assure him. “Or, that is, it’s fine if someone does have psychosis that requires heavy dosage of medicine to handle because you don’t choose that life, and I don’t mean to belittle people that do, but, ah, I don’t _need_ it to function in my day-to-day, but it really helps.”

Derek was starting to understand that Stiles was a talker, when you gave him the chance. 

“Okay,” Derek said, simply. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Seem’s we’re both stuck here, for the time being. I don’t doubt Laura has been trying to figure out how to get me out of here. If... if the beast followed through on our deal, at least.”

“It did!” Stiles declared, nodding vigorously. Derek arched an eyebrow, and Stiles explained, hands flailing again. “The beast, monster, whatever, it takes deals seriously. You have to, for things to go the way it wants. Ritual is important. To the beast.”

Stiles sounded like he knew this from experience. Derek wondered what horrors the beast may have forced Stiles to see as prisoner inside this house. He remembered the cases of torture and hoped Stiles had been stuck in the attic and not a witness. He wouldn’t ask, though, ever. There was no need to pull up past trauma.

“Right, okay.” Derek didn’t hide his exhale of relief, and Stiles smiled at him sadly. “It obviously won’t be easy, since the beast already has the werewolf it needs for... sacrifice.” Stiles shuddered, and Derek bit his lip to stop himself from apologizing. “But I might be able to think of a way to get out myself.” Stiles had a horrified look on his face suddenly, and Derek tacked on, “And you too. I wouldn’t abandon you to the beast. And I’ll help you find your father too.”

The microwave beeped, and the tension in the room snapped like a tightly-wound cord, and the both inhaled sharply. In silence, Stiles deposited one of the chicken breasts onto the second plate and then handed Derek a fork and knife from the dish drainer.

“I don’t know if I can help,” Stiles whispered, as if he feared the beast could hear if he talked at a normal volume, “But I’ll try with what I can.”

Derek held the plate and silverware in one hand and brought the other to rest on Stiles’ shoulder squeezing the muscle. 

“I’m not giving up yet,” Derek promised.

He may have given up when he was tied in the basement, tortured, clinging on to life as mistletoe infected his blood stream, and maybe he would have stayed resigned to his fate, had Stiles not been here. He couldn’t abandon this kid when there was the potential he could save them both. 

There was some deep sadness on Stiles’ face, and Derek guessed he was thinking about his father. 

But he probably should be careful about anything he says regarding escaping. Derek had no way of knowing if the beast was still monitoring the house during the day. It may be weaker during the day, unable to keep a corporeal form, but that didn’t make it powerless. He wanted to keep any advantage he discovered close to his chest.

A selfish part of him hoped that Laura would take care of it all so that he didn’t have to. He’d depended a lot on his sister for almost eight years, since the fire. And though he knew she knew he supported her and had her back, she was always, as the Alpha, taking the brunt of the hits and taking care of the problems. 

Not to mention, if Derek broke the deal and figured out how to escape the beast’s captivity, then Laura’s safety was no longer guaranteed. If the beast was powerful enough, she may immediately be brought to the house and chained if he stepped off of the property. 

Derek ate his chicken in contemplative silence. Stiles was a faster eater, because within a minute he was washing his plate and leaving it to dry in the dish drainer, as he headed towards the living room, giving Derek the quiet to think. Stiles must have picked up on his need. 

The television was turned on, Derek could loudly hear, but immediately lowered to a soft murmur in the background. Derek thought it might be some kind of sports program, but he couldn’t make out a full sentence. 

Derek followed that thread of thought and stared down at his hands. His nails sharpened into claws and then receded when he called back the power. He could feel the bite of his fangs disappear as well. So, despite the fact that his hearing abilities were diminished, he still could shift, as least to a simplistic beta form. It seemed his sense of smell was being diluted as well by whatever powerful magic the beast had over the house. He could smell the scent of human — Stiles — and there was a faint undercurrent of evil that seemed to permeate everything — the beast. But the main thing he smelled was disinfectants and citrus-scented cleaners. So if someone entered the house, he might be able to scent them, but he’d never be able to hear or catch them from outside or further. 

The food felt heavy in his stomach. Derek should feel grateful he still had a life to live. It was unlikely he would survive whatever the beast had planned for him, but hopefully Laura would be able to escape unscathed. 

A dark part of Derek reminded him that he deserved to be ritualistically sacrificed, for what he’d done to his family. Derek knew what Laura would say if he ever told her what’s he’d done, that she wouldn’t blame him. That was part of the reason Derek had never told her.

Though he thought he deserved punishment, he knew that Laura did not. He hoped he would survive, for her sake, because she didn’t deserve to lose the last living member of her family. 

And Stiles deserved hope of getting out of this situation alive and finding his dad. So Derek resolved to push aside his guilt for the time being and focus his energy on learning what he could about the beast while interacting with it as little as possible. He didn’t want to interrogate Stiles, seeing how anxiety ridden and jumpy he was over a single question earlier; he didn’t need the added stress. But maybe he could get him to open up slowly and share any knowledge he had. 

Derek cleaned his dish in the sink and set the plate in the drainer propped opposite of Stiles’. He then made his way to the living room, and he was glad to know his sense of hearing hadn’t totally failed him, because Stiles had settled on one of the many ESPN channels, two smartly dressed men discussing baseball statistics on the screen.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Stiles asked, and his sudden voice startled Derek.

Stiles turned over his shoulder to look at Derek, a lazy upturn to his lips, as he gestured to the television with the remote in one hand.

“Baseball?” Derek asked, taking a seat next to him on the couch.

“No. Well, yes, the Mets are actually doing decent so far. But that’s not what I mean. I mean that the rest of the world is still moving, baseball is still happening. The only place on standstill is this town. Hell, even Beacon Valley I bet is normal.”

Derek nodded, agreeing, because it was. 

“It is crazy. But it’s not like the world doesn’t know stuff is going down. At least within the supernatural community. Laura and I heard about—” he stopped himself from saying “the murders”, “everything, and we were in New York.”

Stiles looked at him, surprise on his face. “Really? You came from New York?”

“Laura... She... We both feel guilty about abandoning the territory. She feels it’s her responsibility to fix this because she wasn’t here to stop it, and I wasn’t going to let her come alone. Thank God I didn’t.”

Stiles reached over to pat his knee. “There was no sign this was going to happen. One day, everything was normal. Then my dad got a call, and then two days later I was...” Stiles choked on his words, fingers clenched around the remote. “...here.”

Derek squeezed the fingers of the hand on his knee, not one for words, but understanding the grief. He hadn’t considered the timeline of events, or how fast it all had happened. The beast must have been preparing for this for a long time. 

Stiles stared down at his hand held captive by Derek, and Derek quickly took his fingers away, worrying he overstepped. Laura had been encouraging him over the last couple of years to relax around people, engage in casual touches, like he used to before the fire. Now, in a high-pressure situation, Derek was leaning into that desire for comfort. But maybe Stiles reacted the complete opposite. 

Neither of them commented, and they both looked back at the television, and Derek willed it to alleviate the tension between them. 

Thankfully, it dissipated quickly, and Stiles visibly relaxed further into the cushions, the way he had been when Derek had first entered the room. Stiles made little comments, mostly it seemed to himself, on the clips of baseball games from the past week being shown, and Derek eventually threw in a few of his own. He didn’t actively watch baseball, not like he had as a kid, but he still remembered everything about the sport. 

The light in the room slowly shifted as the sun lowered in the sky, and once Derek noticed the room was significantly darker than it had been before, his minimal senses went on high alert.

He hated to disrupt the ease of the situation, but he knew when the beast inevitably showed up, it would be shattered anyway.

“Stiles,” Derek called, voice soft.

“Mhmm?” 

Derek shifted so that he was facing the younger man. “I need to know what to expect. When, um... does the beast—?”

Stiles’ sudden alarmed expression cut Derek off, and he whipped his head around the room, to see if the beast had suddenly appeared, but the room was still only an occupancy of two. 

“Shit, you’re right. I didn’t realize it was getting so late. There’s still time. Um, so what I’ve been doing while you were healing was keeping you in the bedroom with mountain ash, so that the beast can’t get into the room. Or, at least it hasn’t been able to yet, so it should be safe. It’s probably smart to keep doing that, so you stay safe.”

“What about you?” Derek asked. 

Stiles shook his head. “You’re the important variable right now. The beast isn’t after me, it already has what it wants from me. It won’t hurt me, just wants me locked in the attic. If I were to try to change anything, like be in the room with you...” Stiles worried at his bottom lip. “It might get upset. Hurt my dad, hurt you. I don’t want to risk its wrath.”

“It could hurt _you_ ,” Derek pointed out.

But Stiles just shook his head again. “It needs me, I guess.”

“The beast needs me too,” Derek argued.

“But you can heal if the beast maims you. I’m a fragile human. Different playing field. I have to stay,” Stiles raised his fingers and mocked air quotes, “‘pure’.”

That must have been something the beast had said at one point to Stiles. Derek didn’t like it, but unfortunately Stiles was right. 

“I’ll be safe,” Stiles assured him, though his voice wavered, and Derek didn’t need to hear his heartbeat to know he didn’t fully believe his words.

Still, even after risking probably his hide to heal Derek back up and protect him every night, the beast had yet to harm Stiles, at least that Derek could see. Stiles had been living in this situation for three months. He knew how the beast acted. He knew best how to handle the situation.

Derek didn’t have to like the plan, though.

Stiles reached forward, hand outstretched, and Derek watched with trepidation as Stiles placed his palm onto Derek’s forehead. It wasn’t until a few seconds later, when Stiles took it off, that Derek realized Stiles was checking his temperature.

“I feel fine,” Derek said.

“Good. Still, you should rest tonight. A lot. Maybe starting now. It’d be better to avoid any interaction with the beast, I would think.”

Derek was prepared to argue that he _wanted_ to interact with the beast, to learn about it so he could defeat it, maybe, but Stiles was shoving his shoulders and ushering him towards the stairs, and clearly this conversation was not to be had. 

Stiles prodded Derek through an early evening nightly routine, pulling clothes from random drawers for Derek to sleep in, shooing him towards the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth with a thankfully unopened packaged toothbrush. When Derek got back to the bedroom, the sky was a flat line of blue outside of the blinded window.

Stiles had a jar in his hand, and Derek realized with a jolt it was mountain ash. 

“Already?” Derek asked.

Stiles nodded. “Best not to wait out the sunset,” he said, like it was an old proverb.

Derek stayed in the room while Stiles stayed outside in the hallway. Derek watched him uncap the jar and sprinkle a near perfect line across the raised entrance to the room, right where the door would sit when closed.

Derek had only seen mountain ash manipulation a few times in his life, and he watched Stiles with a hint of fascination as he used a steady hand to pour out an even distribution. When he finished, He stood from where he’d been crouched down on his knees and looked up at Derek with a bit of pride. 

Derek wondered how Stiles had gotten mountain ash. Did he know of the supernatural community before all this happened? He opened his mouth to ask.

The lights in the house all went out at once. Panic struck across Stiles’ face, and before Derek could do or any anything, Stiles reached across and slammed the door to the bedroom with a flick of his wrist.

Derek pressed his hand against the door, and he could feel the power of the mountain ash right beneath it, stopping him from even opening it. 

“Is that the—”

“Yes,” Stiles responded quickly, and for the first time Derek heard genuine fear in his voice. It wasn’t the worry he emitted or the confidence he assured Derek with, but actual fear.

Derek leaned against the door, knowing he was useless with the mountain ash in place. Suddenly the temperature in the house dropped, and Derek shivered. “Stiles!”

“Derek! Stay—”

Stiles’ voice cut off abruptly, like he’d been choked, and Derek heard familiar maniacal laughter. Laughter with no distinct tone, but it vibrated through his bones. 

“ _Oh_ , has the wolf gotten attached to you, Stiles? Interesting.”

Derek leaned against the door, struggling to hear anything from Stiles, a sign that he was okay. He could only hear his harsh breathing, until: “Goodnight, Derek,” Stiles whispered, voice sounding broken.

Something thumped loudly in the hall, and Derek cursed Stiles for erecting the mountain ash line. It kept the beast out, clearly, but it also kept him in. 

“Just because your prison has moved, Derek Hale, means nothing,” the beast reminded him. “Just because I cannot touch you now...” Nails scraped down the door on the other side, and Derek flinched back at the noise. “...does not mean it will be that way forever.”

The shuffling footsteps of the beast faded away, down to the end of the hall, towards where Derek had been told the entrance to the attic was. 

No matter how long Derek stayed ear-first pressed against the door, listening hard for anything else, the house was silent. His adrenaline crash hit him sooner than he expected, so he leaned his head back against the wall and allowed his exhaustion to overcome him, worry for Stiles clouding his dreams. 

* * *

When Derek woke at the creak of the door, it took him two seconds to remember his situation, and he sat up from the floor with a sudden inhale and saw Stiles flail in the doorway, leaning against the wall with one hand clutched over his chest and the other holding a jar of mountain ash.

“Christ, Derek, gave me a heart attack!” Stiles scolded. “Why are you on the _floor_?”

Derek scanned him up and down, looking for injuries but couldn’t see any. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Stiles looked confused, and still a little shocked, but then his face cleared in understanding. “Yeah, Derek. I told you I’d be fine.”

“But the beast, last night—”

“Derek.” Stiles’ tone was stern. “Can you trust me when I say I’m fine? No maiming occurred. I was in the attic five minutes ago sleeping and then came to collect the mountain ash and check in on you.”

Trust? Derek wanted to scoff at the word. He only trusted Laura now. But he did _believe_ Stiles. 

“Okay.” He pushed himself to his feet, adjusting his shirt so that it wasn’t bunched up around his stomach like it had been, exposing his waist. 

“Why were you on the floor?” Stiles asked again, a hint of amusement in his voice this time.

“I was _concerned_ ,” Derek snapped. “I was trying to hear what the beast was doing and I guess I passed out at some point.”

Stiles gave him an unimpressed face and flicked him on the forehead. “What good is the bed if you don’t use it,” he grumbled, brushing past Derek into the room to grab a fresh set of clothes, Derek surmised, going by his fumbling in the drawers.

“Thank you.”

The words were whispered, and Derek almost missed them. 

“I’m not used to— I’ve been alone for so long, I didn’t consider...” Stiles shook his head, apparently unable to articulate his thoughts fully.

Derek got the gist, though, so he grunted in acknowledgement. 

Stiles cleared his throat and then spoke again at a normal volume. “Well, good morning, anyway. It’s still early, so you can get some more rest if you want.”

Derek looked out the window and saw the last dregs of the sunrise, orange streaks across the sky. He really was an early riser.

But there were bags under his eyes, now that Derek was paying attention, so he said, “Maybe you should get some shut eye on a mattress. I can’t imagine there’s a Tempur-Pedic in that attic.”

Stiles snorted a laugh at Derek’s joke. “True. But I’m fine, truly. I’m not tired.”

He spoke steadily, and Derek could tell it was oddly the truth, so he decided not to push. 

Stiles ducked out of the room then with a change of clothes. 

Derek took a seat on the bed, and though he must have slept for at least eight hours if not closer to ten, he did still feel pretty tired. His body probably required the extra rest, now that his fever had broken and was on the mend. 

The clock next to the bed declared it almost nine by the time he woke again, this time feeling surprisingly energetic. 

He was greeted with a similar scene to the day before, Stiles setting aside a rag he’d obviously been cleaning the counters with and offering Derek a glass of water and suggesting breakfast. 

“What would we eat?” Derek asked

“I usually forego breakfast, but if it’s been a—a long night, then I get some fresh fruit from the garden.”

Derek remembered the fact that food wasn’t really a resource they had an unending flow of, and though as a werewolf he often ate a lot, he knew that would not be a luxury here. So he shook his head instead and ignored his stomach. 

“We should save it for when we need it.” He gestured to the cleaning rag. “Can I help?”

Stiles waved his hands about and looked at Derek in surprise. “What? No! No, that’s not necessary. I do it mostly to keep busy, anyway.”

Derek hovered by the counter for another moment, sipping slowly on his emptying glass, eyes flitting around the first floor of the house, thinking that his new prison was psychological torture rather than physical, because he could already see himself quickly growing bored. 

Stiles had his routine. Who knows how long it took for him to settle into it. Derek had less than six weeks before being sacrificed under a slightly larger moon. He couldn’t allow himself to go insane in the meantime. He had to work on getting out, but he had to keep sane while he worked up to that. 

“Can I ask you something?” Derek found himself blurting to Stiles, who had moved over to the stove and was scrubbing the grates. 

“You may,” Stiles responded, a lit of tease in his voice.

Derek rolled his eyes, even though Stiles couldn’t see the motion. “Did you know about the existence of werewolves, or supernatural creatures in general, before all this?”

The stove grate clattered back into place as Stiles brushed the cloth over the tops of them one last time. He shrugged his shoulders, but if he was making a face, Derek couldn’t see it. “Knowing is one thing. Guessing is another. No, I had no proof until I was living it. But once the beast arrived, things started to make more sense. The beast would talk, some times, to itself, about other things, and I heard its plan about you— or, getting werewolf power, or something. So that was how I knew what you were.”

So Stiles secretly being able to unearth a treasure trove of information was a no-go, but Derek hadn’t put much hope into that being possible. 

“How much do you know now? From what you’ve heard?”

Stiles shrugged again, this time turning to face Derek. A wry smile was on his face. “Just what I’ve heard and been able to surmise myself.” The rag made a wet slap as it hit the counter next to Derek as Stiles spun abruptly, startling Derek. “ _Actually_ ,” he dragged out the word, eyes widening a pinch and sweeping over Derek with interest. “ _I_ have a few questions. Maybe more than a few.”

Derek tensed instinctively. Of course Stiles would be curious. He seemed naturally so. But despite the fact that it was clear he was in deep on the werewolf secret, that didn’t make Derek automatically comfortable with sharing details of his life and his species with someone who should never have learned them in the first place.

But if he wanted to get any and all information on the beast that he could from Stiles, he had to give Stiles information first. Open up to him, get him to trust Derek. 

Derek forced himself to relax and nod. “That makes sense,” Derek replied, an olive branch.

Stiles grinned at him. “Great. Oh— let me get my notebook.”

Stiles abandoned the kitchen and raced up the stairs, but returned in less than a minute, a flipped-open spiral-bound notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. He uncapped the pen with his teeth and then jammed it onto the pen’s end before jerking his head to the living room. “Mind if I take notes?”

Derek wanted to immediately ask why, fearing that the information he told Stiles would be used against him in the future (it had happened before, and look where it got him, so he was understandably tense). But Stiles looked purely curious, not tense; there was no nasty smirk to his grin or glimmer in his eye. Derek pursed his lips and huffed out of his nose. Stiles took that as his answer and continued towards the couch where he sat and propped the notebook on a knee.

Derek sat gingerly next to him and braced for impact. 

By the time Stiles’ questions had faded, at least three pages had been flipped to make way for an empty page in the notebook after Stiles filled in the previous, and Derek’s hunger was no longer a thing he could ignore.

But Stiles didn’t seem like he’d stopped because he was sated. It was more like he wanted a chance to go through what he’d learned so that he could ask even more, further intrusive, questions. 

The sun was high in the sky at this point, streaming in through the window behind the television. It looked like it would be a pleasant day outside, if you lived anywhere but Beacon Hills. 

“Maybe we could work in the garden after we get some food,” Stiles suggested, seeing Derek’s attention drawn to the window. 

He didn’t know if they would even be able to feel the sun with the aura of cold and evil blanketing the entire property, but work sounded good. It also sounded like Stiles would be unable to take more notes. 

Another small frozen meal consumed; Stiles led Derek out into the backyard through the door in the kitchen. There was a short porch, long and wide enough to fit one rocking chair, old and wooden, and a rusted Webber grill. Sitting next to the two stairs leading into the yard was a bucket, and in the bucket was some gardening tools and gloves. They were pink and obviously meant for feminine-fit hands, but Stiles snagged them and slipped them on without question, then picked up the bucket and left the small strip of shade. 

Derek followed, and when the sun hit him, he was surprised at how hot it made him. He took a real look at the backyard for the first time and was really surprised. It was much larger than he’d expected, the garden and plant plots reaching far beyond the back of the house, eating into the plot of land behind it, into the yards of the houses the street over, which also looked abandoned going by the lack of lights and movement. 

In a large U-shape, rectangular wooden planters single-parenthesed the house. Some of the plants towered high, like the tomato bushes, and there was a trellis he saw as he followed Stiles further back with grape and rose vines twining up and down it on either side. The vegetables and fruits seemed to be separated, with spots of pretty flowering plants in between. Derek knew nothing about gardening, so this could have been how most gardens looked and was quite normal. But to him it was spectacular and, despite the situation, the best thing he’d seen since arriving in Beacon Hills. 

“Sorry, there’s only one pair of gloves,” Stiles spoke, shaking Derek out of his trance. “But I figure you’ve got the better chance of recovering from a pricked finger.” Stiles wiggled his pink hands for emphasis.

“This is beautiful,” Derek responded, gesturing to the yard. “How much of this was like this before?”

Stiles cupped a hand over his forehead as a sunshade and stared out at the yard. “All of it.”

“So you were able to pick up after it once you, er, came here?”

Stiles hesitated, hand drooping back to his side, but then nodded. “Yeah. I work on my own backyard so I knew what to do already.” There was a brief inhale before Stiles continued, “So, I trimmed back the bushes already, but the soil needs watering because it’s been pretty dry recently. There’s a hose on the side of the house.” He gestured for Derek to follow, and they ventured further back, the plots bracketing them on either side. “I see some clovers over with the strawberry bush, those need to go. That’s rabbit-nip if I ever saw it. Anything that is spiky is a must-go. Other than the roses, of course. Those should be the only prickly plants in this garden. The herbs, hm, I’ll tackle those because it’s tough to see what’s weed and what isn’t. You take the flowers and I’ll take the veggies?”

Derek nodded and flexed his fingers, ready to do something with the energy that felt like it was buzzing just beneath his skin. It didn’t take long for Derek to work up a seat, and he took off his shirt and used that to wipe himself down. Every few minutes a breeze would blow by, and both he and Stiles would simultaneously sigh.

Stiles was clearly a natural at this. Derek wielded the hose, but Stiles directed him where to water, and how much, all without taking his eyes off of his careful weed picking. But then, every so often, Derek would glance up ant catch Stiles’ calculating gaze, before it disappeared with a quick flick.

Derek supposed if he had just learned of a whole new species of creature and had one right next to him, he would be curious too. Still, it was odd. 

The bucket was filled multiple times with weeds, which Stiles had Derek toss out at the far corner of the yard, into the neighbor’s yards, but Derek didn’t think they would care too much. 

They worked until the sun began to lower and the cool of the day appeared, freezing the sweat that Derek had worked up along his bare skin.

Stiles kept staring at him, and Derek wondered what he was thinking. 

“We should probably head in,” he said, the final time he met Stiles’ assessing gaze. “Wash up, eat something, relax a bit, before...”

He didn’t need to finish. Derek knew what came next. 

He stood from his kneeling position, brushed dirt off of his knees, and picked the shirt up off of the grass where he’d discarded it earlier. 

The evening concluded much the same as the previous, but on a quicker timeline. There was only about an hour after Derek stepped out of the shower, having cleaned the sweat from his body, to when Stiles was nudging him up the stairs and into the bedroom, mountain ash in hand.

Derek had forgotten to ask where Stiles had gotten it. A question for tomorrow, then.

“Sleep in the bed tonight, okay?” Stiles suggested, a teasing lit to his voice, but there was tension in his face, and his gaze kept flicking over to the window, as if counting down the seconds until the beast was to appear.

“For you,” Derek grumbled. That at least coaxed a small smile out of Stiles. 

Stiles closed the door gently with a soft, “Goodnight, Derek.”

Derek stood and waited at the door, listening.

He heard Stiles exhale heavily, heard the jar clink against something, and then heard some shuffling against the wall.

Then cold rushed in, seeping from under the door crack and quickly settling in the air. 

Derek didn’t hear another noise for the rest of the night, but he did sleep in the bed.

* * *

In the following days, Derek did start to develop a routine of his own.

He would wake up in the bedroom, usually at the sound of the door opening as Stiles broke the mountain ash line. Sometimes, he would follow Stiles downstairs then, but he usually gave back into the call for sleep and joined in a few hours later. 

Stiles had his usual routine, and Derek did his best to stay out of his way, to not upset the only normal that Stiles could have. But he would join him on the couch when the sports network was on. He started picking up the books in the bedroom and looking for ones he hadn’t read before. There was a surprising amount of fairytale books, which Derek was choosing to see as ironic. 

He never saw Stiles read, but he would see him write sometimes. Especially when he came up with more werewolf or supernaturally-related questions to ask. His notebook was quickly filling with all of the inane stories Derek was comfortable with sharing about his life, his past, and his family. 

But it always unnerved him when he was closed in the bedroom each night, a line of mountain ash at his feet. He disliked feeling like he was abandoning Stiles to the beast, though he never seemed worse for wear the following morning. Maybe a bit more tired some mornings, but not injured.

He was becoming more and more protective over Stiles the more he spent time with him and grew to know him. Sometimes, he would forget that they were both in the situation they were in and found himself enjoying watching a random television program, or playing one of the unearthed board games after his first week stuck there, or even tag-teaming the cleaning of a room. 

But the end of the day always came, and reality always hit them and separated them before the sun had fully set. And it was getting more difficult each night not to ask Stiles once more to stay in the room and safe with him. He feared getting rejected again, and Derek wasn’t sure why he cared. 

* * *

Derek was getting... antsy. 

He had done his best to be gentle with any questions to Stiles regarding the beast, but after two weeks of sitting around and playing a weird version of house, he was itching to escape, to figure a way out.

It was also the full moon, so that didn’t help anything.

Derek worried about Laura. He longed to call out for her, but feared if he did, she would try and break him out, which would be too dangerous. The beast might abandon the idea of the supermoon altogether and just kill them both. 

“Are you okay?” Stiles asked as they stood across from each other at the kitchen island, eating Lean Cuisine boxed meals. 

“Full moon,” Derek grumbled, shoveling a forkful of disappointing spaghetti into his mouth.

Stiles’ eyes widened and he exhaled with a noise of understanding. Derek grunted his assent.

Within Stiles’ line of questioning, he’d quickly asked if the myths were true regarding shifting on the full moon. Derek had explained that yes, they were much more inclined to do so, but they always had the ability to shift. They were just stronger and had, depending on their mental state, better or worse control. But no, Stiles, silver was no worse a weapon than any other metal. Wolfsbane was their Kryptonite.

This was Derek’s first (and hopefully only) full moon in captivity. He’d felt fully in control of his wolf for the last two weeks, so he wasn’t worried about needing to be contained (though he would be anyway, so he really didn’t have to think on it too hard). But he ached for a long run to burn away the restless energy.

“Anything I can do to help?”

Derek clenched his hand around his fork. He wanted _out_ , but that was not an option. He could go work in the garden, that always took time and energy. But right now, he didn’t feel a need to physically _do_ , he just wanted to _act_.

It had been two weeks. Stiles had gotten his interrogation. Now it was Derek’s turn.

Derek set his fork down and pushed the “food” aside. Stiles glanced up, saw something on Derek’s face that indicated a change in mood, and did the same.

“I have some questions,” Derek announced.

Stiles’ mouth quirked up. “Okay?”

“I...” Derek stumbled over is words, trying to find the right ones. “I didn’t want to— don’t want to, actually, upset you or make you, um, remember anything...” 

Derek wasn’t good at this. Talking and negotiating was the Alpha’s job. Laura had grown up learning how to do this. Derek was born to be a second, a right-hand man, and he was good at being the intimidating guard at her back. He was not the talker, never would be. 

“Derek, just ask,” Stiles stated, reaching over and patting the back of Derek’s clenched fist that was settled on the counter. “If I can’t answer, I won’t.”

Derek figured that was fair. He tried to think of the best thing to ask so maybe he could ascertain what kind of monster this beast was. He had some ideas, from the things the best had said and the way the beast conducted rituals, but he couldn’t narrow down his mental search without further facts.

Derek recalled the beast, the only time he had seen it. Cloaked, almost hovering over the ground. Smaller than expected for such an evil monster, but shrouded in darkness. No facial features, all obscured. 

“Have you ever seen the beast’s face? Uncovered?” If Derek could maybe have a clue as to what it was, he had a stronger chance at defeating it.

But unfortunately, Stiles shook his head. “No, I have never seen the beast’s true face.”

“Nothing?”

“Scarring. Just... lots of scaring.”

The way that Sties’ eyes glazed over, it was obvious he was picturing something, and it was unlikely to be a pleasant image.

Derek decided to change direction. “You told me that you had guessed that the supernatural existed but never knew for sure until you were stuck here. So where did you get the mountain ash?”

That question had always been on the tip of his tongue, but it had never felt like the right time to ask it.

Thankfully, Stiles didn’t seem offended by it and answered quickly and easily. “It appeared in the house, in the basement, with the beast’s things. Mountain ash, mistletoe, wolfsbane, nightshade, wormwood, foxglove... there’s dozens of jars in the basement. But the beast never touched the mountain ash, and so I started testing with it, wondering why, and I realized it could create a barrier against the beast. I never tried it again with myself, because I was too worried the beast would do something to my dad if I did anything further. But it’s weird that the beast had it but never used it.”

Derek wondered aloud, “Maybe the beast used to be able to, but can’t now that it’s, ah, in the middle of a ritual?”

Derek didn’t know much about mountain ash itself, but he knew a bit about druidic rituals. He’d only met Deaton, his mother’s emissary a couple scant times. Emissaries were meant to aid packs, but only be known by the Alpha. It was for their safety. The only time Derek had ever shared words and seen Deaton’s face fully was after Paige—

Derek shook his head, and swallowed back the bile in his throat.

So, possible connections to druids. Derek would think on that harder later.

“Maybe,” Stiles agreed, and then took another bite of his “pasta”. 

“But the beast used the other things.”

Stiles started chewing slower, and Derek wondered if he was recalling a memory. “Yes. At least, the contents disappeared from the jars.”

They were probably used in the sacrifices. Or maybe the tortures. Derek didn’t know what combination of magic and herbs could strike someone mute and blind, but he expected it was more than possible. He knew druidic magic could heal, but...

“You’re thinking hard over there. It’s amusing.”

Derek glanced up from where his gaze had dropped in thought. He shot Stiles a glare, and the younger man simply shot his hands up in a defensive position. 

“I just want to know what this beast is,” Derek grumbled. “If I can at least be prepared for next month’s moon, I may stand a chance.”

“ _Don’t_ tell me,” Stiles suddenly stated.

Derek arched an eyebrow, confusion only deepening when he saw the serious look on Stiles’ face. “What?”

Stiles dropped his gaze and his shoulders hunched, the silly atmosphere evaporating instantly. “I’m flattered, grateful, that you are willing to use me as a sound board so I can learn more about your amazingly weird life. But...” Stiles swallowed thickly; Derek watched his Adam’s apple bob. “The beast is strong. Really strong. And I’m not saying you aren’t smart enough to figure—figure out a way to defeat it. But what if it tries to use me, or something? I’m weak. I don’t know... I don’t want to put you in danger because of knowledge that I have that, though I would never willingly divulge, it might be able to get out of me anyway.”

Derek thought he understood where Stiles was coming from. “You’re not weak,” Derek told him, and Stiles looked up at him at that. “You’ve survived this long, Stiles, you have a lot more strength than you realize. But I understand what you’re saying. I won’t tell you if I discover anything. But if I think of more questions, can I still ask?”

Stiles nibbled at his bottom lip, clearly looking torn. But he nodded a moment later. “Yeah, Derek. You can ask me. I’m not much help, but I already told you I would do what I could.”

It struck Derek then that Stiles was terrified, perhaps constantly. He rarely showed it, and even in those few moments he did, it was always terror on Derek’s behalf, never his own. 

Stiles was human. He’d been thrown into this situation as an unwilling victim and exposed to something fantastical.

Derek shouldn’t ask more of him than he could give, because he was afraid, though Stiles was strong and he hadn’t lied about that, there was still the risk of him breaking. Mentally or physically.

“One more question.”

“Sure, Derek.”

Derek pointed towards Stiles’ plate. “Does yours taste like plastic too?”

Stiles snorted. “I think that’s your delicate werewolf sensibilities talking. I _love_ these, actually. Buy them all the time for myself.”

Derek shook his head and heavily exhaled. The tension slowly abated, and when Derek looked back up, Stiles didn’t look upset or scared anymore. He looked normal.

“You should learn to cook,” Derek suggested.

“As soon as I have the ingredients, Derek Hale, I will bake you a pie that you will never want to stop eating. Mark my words.”

Derek snorted a laugh. “Game on.”

* * *

After that, Derek did his planning and thinking at night, after he was sealed away in the bedroom. He borrowed a notebook that was left in the desk in the room, flipping to an empty sheet. The notebook had previously obviously been used for a math class, pages upon pages of equations that Derek had hoped he’d never have to set eyes upon after graduating high school. 

He made a bullet-pointed list of everything he knew about the beast, and then worked off of that list from the knowledge he already had to try and figure out what the beast was, it’s motivation, why Beacon Hills...

Well, the Nematon in the preserve seemed to be the location draw. Derek knew it had once been a place of great power. And it wouldn’t be a surprise that the beast would use blood magic, sacrificial rituals, to bring it back to life. 

And the beast had an arsenal of herbs that it seemed to use. Derek had not been back down to the basement, but he had asked Stiles casually if he had noticed if any more of the jars had been used, and Stiles had commented that a few had. 

Now druids used a mix of herbs and natural plant life and magic, drawing power from the land. Emissaries were specialty druids that focused on protection, specifically supernatural protection, which was who Deaton was to Derek’s pack. Well, had been. 

Derek wondered if Laura had gone to seek him out. He hoped she’d found some help, and if Deaton had stuck around Beacon Hills, even in secret, maybe he felt guilty enough about not protecting their pack and would help them stop the beast.

But if the beast was using druid magic, what made it so powerful that it hadn’t already been stopped?

And why couldn’t a druid use mountain ash? 

Derek paused, pencil stilled in his fingers, as he thought. Mountain ash could not be manipulated by werewolves or even touched. Which made it the perfect material to build safe boxes out of, to protect items they didn’t want other supernaturals getting their hands on. This was the benefit to having humans in a pack as well. They were often advisors, the _real_ second hands to Alphas. Negotiators. Planners. Peacekeepers.

Derek thought of Stiles’ father, the sheriff, and wondered if he had known about werewolves. He hoped the man was safe, for Stiles’ sake. 

If what Stiles said and believed was true, he would still be alive, and possible unharmed, just captive like the two of them. He wondered where he was being kept.

He was being kept for a reason. The beast either planned to use him as another sacrifice (Derek hated to think so, but he had to be logical and analytical when thinking things through, there was no time to get emotional) or as a bargaining tool to force the town into complying. Or both.

Sooner or later the town would either all scatter and leave Beacon Hills to dust, or they would surrender. Neither of which were great options.

The beast was planning to use Derek for a ritual in, Derek checked the calendar on the wall, twenty-six days. And it seemed, perhaps, it had plans for Stiles as well. So rituals were important to the beast. Getting power was important, to the beast. Derek wished he had more knowledge about the three victims, but he couldn’t recall anything about them that stood out as being connected or special. 

He could ask Stiles, but he was still wary about bringing up trauma he may have experienced. People had been tortured in this house, and because Stiles had been here for four months now, it matched up, timeline wise, that he would have been in the house to witness it. Maybe knowing what Stiles saw could give him further details, but Derek didn’t want to ask yet. He felt himself holding back for a reason he wasn’t really ready to acknowledge yet. 

He would, if he hit a wall and had nothing. But not yet.

_Scarring_. Stiles had mentioned scarring as the only distinctive feature of the beast. Derek didn’t know if that meant it was on the beast’s arms, legs, face, hands, anywhere. The beast was cloaked completely, so it could be anywhere, and it wore gloves over its fingers. Maybe it was scarred all over.

But it was humanoid, in shape. It walked on two legs, spoke in a mostly-human voice (though in Derek’s memory it sounded like several voices overlapping), and in English. This led Derek to believe it had more ties to humanity than magic. That didn’t make the murderous beast any less than a monster, it just didn’t mean it necessarily had monstrous origins. 

Derek was still stuck on the mountain ash, for some reason. A druid that couldn’t use mountain ash was a ridiculous concept.

Unless...

Unless the druid had gone dark. Mountain ash is meant for protection, isn’t it? It was not created to be used maliciously, and if it is used as such, maybe it rejects the user.

That would explain why the beast had mountain ash but never used it. It used to be able to. Clearly it worked to keep the beast from getting to him. Derek didn’t imagine the beast wanted him seeping in a cozy bed each night. It would much rather have Derek compliant and strung up in chains in the basement. Derek being free to roam the house did nothing to benefit the beast. Probably.

So, a dark druid? Derek had never heard of one of those, but there was a lot that Derek didn’t know. 

And knowing what the beast was didn’t get him any further to actually stopping it.

When Derek’s brain started to hurt, he snapped the notebook closed and rubbed his temples. He decided he’d sleep on it and then check again tomorrow, review the notes, and see if any of it made any more sense.

He eyed the bookshelves in the room, picked one of the books off at random, and curled up on one side on the bed, flipping through pages until his eyes felt too heavy to stay open any longer.

* * *

“My mom loved roses.”

Derek glanced up from the tomatoes and turned to appraise Stiles, who was looking surprised at the fact that he’d spoken aloud.

Stiles was a talker; Derek’s observation about him had been correct, but when they worked outside weeding, collecting food, soaking up the little sun, he was always quiet. Usually Derek was the one to speak once they got down to their tasks.

So for Stiles to speak up was odd, but Derek wasn’t going to stop him.

The surprise in Stiles’ expression disappeared as Derek continued to wait patiently for Stiles to continue. He smiled sadly down at his gloved hands where he’d been tending to the arching trellis and its rose and grape vines. 

“He — my dad — used to tease her, call her Briar Rose, because she was the heaviest sleeper, but would always, ah, wake up when he was the one to do it. My own personal fairytale.” Stiles snorted a laugh, but it sounded less amused and more nasty.

“That’s sweet,” Derek commented lightly, when a moment passed and Stiles said nothing else, fingers stroking gently over a red rose petal. 

“Yeah, real sweet. Until he tried it one day and she didn’t.”

Derek’s face fell. 

Stiles’ entire body was stiff, hands now down at his sides, fingers curling in on themselves.

Derek hadn’t noticed before, but the ever-present bags under Stiles’ eyes were darker than they used to be.

Derek had suffered nightmares for years. It was the worst about a month after the fire. He woke up every night, soaked in sweat and tears, screaming for his family. 

With time, the nightmares decreased. Derek got sleep due to pure exhaustion, his brain too tired to concoct visions. Laura helped him work through the worse of it, propping each other up. 

To normal humans it may have been weird, but they shared a room for two years after the fire, needing that close proximity to each other when at their most vulnerable. 

Eventually, they found their stride and dealt with their grief in a manageable enough level to sleep on their own. But that didn’t stop the nightmares, though they were rare.

Since Derek had been taken by the beast, his nightmares had returned almost nightly. He guessed it had to do with the dark magic influence the beast had over the house, clouding his dreams. It also didn’t help being back in Beacon Hills for the first time since the fire and being utterly aware that he was trapped.

Just like his parents had been, his little cousins, his siblings, his aunt and uncles, his grandparents… locked in the basement of a burning house on a full moon. 

But he’d learned to deal with the nightmares by now, and he rarely woke up crying or screaming. Stiles had never seen him come out of a nightmare, thankfully, and Derek had been pushing them from his mind as soon as he awoke, not allowing himself to dwell on it for long.

Derek wondered if Stiles had nightmares.

“We should stop for the day,” Derek gently suggested.

“What?” Stiles looked at him like he was crazy. “Why? We’ve barely started.”

“Stiles, I think you should sleep.”

Stiles pursed his lips and huffed through his nose. “I’m not a child, Derek, I’m eighteen. I don’t need ‘naptime’.” He used air quotes.

“Did I say you were?” Derek countered, standing from his crouch in the soil, dusting his knees off as he rose. “You look tired, that’s all.”

Stiles turned back to the trellis and declared stubbornly, “I’m fine.”

“Stiles,” Derek warned. “I’m stronger than you.”

Stiles threw his head back with a sharp burst of laughter. “What? You gonna throw me over your shoulder like a brute and toss me into your bed and wrap me up in blankets ‘til I’m all _snuggled_ in?”

Derek’s eyebrows arched higher and higher with each word Stiles spoke. “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much,” Derek said, because it sounded like something Stiles would appreciate.

Stiles snorted, and Derek knew he’d been right.

“It also sounds like that’s exactly what you want me to do, so...”

Derek followed Stile’s instructions like he’d been ordered and plucked Stiles from the grass, wrapping his arms around his waist and hefting him up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

Stiles shrieked and pounded on his back. “Brute!” he accused, and Derek chuckled.

“Just doing what you asked,” Derek replied, carefully walking them back towards the back porch. He never paused in his stride, even when Stiles started kicking out his legs. He just wrapped a secure arm around them to trap them against his chest, so that Stiles didn’t fall.

“ _Derek_!”

Derek ignored the shout and headed for the stairs, allowing the back door to click shut behind him. He heard a slap of something on the floor behind them, followed by a second one, and glanced back shortly to spy the pink gardening gloves abandoned on the kitchen tile. 

Taking that as a sign of obedience, Derek let go of Stiles’ legs and hovered that free arm over the stairwell bannister, just in case, as he carried his captive to the bedroom.

“Shoes off, please, princess,” Derek gruffed as they entered the bedroom, and he didn’t give Stiles a chance to argue anything before he not-so-delicately tossed Stiles onto the bed.

Stiles let out a whoosh of breath as his back hit the mattress. Derek grinned down at him, teeth on display. Stiles stared up at him, a look of dramatized betrayal. 

“Shoes. Off,” Derek repeated.

Stiles wiggled his feet. “You do it, sir knight, for I am but a lowly damsel in distress in need of a na _p_.” Stiles popped the last “p” and Derek stared at the way Stiles’ lips stayed parted for a beat longer than he should have.

He dropped his gaze eventually to the still wiggling feet and sighed heavily but bent to unlace and tug off the sneakers Stiles only wore when doing work outside. Whenever they were in the house, Stiles just wore socks that made him sometimes slip on the wood, and then Derek would see flashes of his ankles when his pant legs rode up and for some reason found them adorable.

_Shoes, Derek, shoes._

Once Stiles’ feet were sock-clad only, Derek wrapped an arm around his waist once more, causing a squeak to burst from Stiles as he lifted him so he hovered over the bed while Derek tugged the blankets down. Once they were rolled back, Derek set the younger man back down, avoiding his eyes. He concentrated on tucking him in, forcing the blanket up to his chin and securing it tightly around his body.

Stiles wiggled constantly, fighting him the entire time, and Derek huffed in frustration until Stiles finally stopped, giggling instead.

Derek met his eyes then, and he was relieved to see Stiles looked relaxed, an actual smile on his face. When he blinked, his eyes barely reopened, so Derek pushed his shoulder back against the mattress.

“Sleep. I’ll wake you for dinner.”

“Promise?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

When Stiles closed his eyes and didn’t reopen them, Derek watched as his face slackened and he immediately fell into sleep. 

His skin was pale, slightly flushed from their activity, but lighter than was probably healthy. The bags under his eyes looked really bad, now that Derek was paying attention. And had Stiles lost weight? He’d felt light to Derek, but Derek was strong enough to lift a 300-pound man, let alone a skinny eighteen-year-old. But Stiles did look thinner, his cheekbones starker. Derek knew he ate; they shared most meals together. And they weren’t huge meals, but they were enough. Could his weight loss be connected to a lack of sleep instead?

Derek jolted back to himself. Staring was creepy. He should leave, let Stiles rest in peace Clearly, he needed it.

As Derek turned to the door, Stiles made a whining noise and shifted under the covers, and Derek looked back.

There was a furrow to Stiles’ brows that hadn’t been there before, but he was clearly still asleep. Dreaming, maybe. Derek hoped it wasn’t a bad one.

Against his better judgement, Derek ghosted his fingertips over the arch of Stiles’ nose and up his brow. Suddenly, he found himself taking away pain from Stiles before he realized he was doing it.

Had Stiles hurt himself in the garden? No, Derek would have noticed.

Stiles made another noise, this one more of an exhale than a whine, and his face relaxed. Derek pulled his hand away, veins going back to their normal color, and Derek stared down at his hand, betrayed at its action.

He left the room, before his body automatically did something else stupid, and went back outside to finish his tomato collecting. It had just gone afternoon, so Derek figured Stiles should get in a good four or so hours before waking him for dinner. 

He should prepare it, first, so Stiles could rest for as long as possible, and then maybe they could find something on TV to watch, something calming, relaxing.

Derek thought once again about suggesting Stiles stay in his room for the night. He thought of the attic that he was too afraid to check out, for fear of how angry he would get seeing Stiles’ sleeping situation. 

Derek stared at the trellis and its climbing roses. He wondered if Stiles liked roses, or if he didn’t like them due to how they reminded him of his mother, who obviously was no longer around. And yet, he took such care with them, weeding around them carefully, cutting off dead ends and pruning with a sharp eye. 

When Derek set dinner down on the bed in front of a rousing Stiles who had one hand raised to rub at his eyes, he took a deep breath and said, “I lost my whole family to a fire almost eight years ago. Here, in Beacon Hills.”

Derek could feel more than see Stiles freeze at his words. Derek’s thigh pressed against Stiles’ blanket-clad leg, and the muscle tensed. 

Derek soldiered on, because he wanted to get this all out. He didn’t know why now, why Stiles, but it just felt right. He felt ready. And he thought, well, if in three weeks he was to die by a crazy beast’s hand, well, someone ought to know his story. The whole story. And maybe, when Stiles got out, hopefully unscathed, he could tell Laura what Derek hadn’t been able to. He only hoped his sister would forgive him.

“I was sixteen. Kate Argent knew my family, my pack, would all be together for the full moon, helping the li-little ones get used to the shift, in the basement. She barred them in and then burned the house down. Laura and I were late getting home, and by the time we heard the distress howls, it was too late. Laura almost drove us off the road when the Alpha power overtook her. And so we just...drove and drove and drove. And we never came back.”

Derek took a deep, steadying breath. He listened to Stiles slightly quickened breaths but continued to stare down at the duvet.

“When I was fifteen, I... I had to kill my girlfriend, the first love of my life, because she was dying from a werewolf bite that wouldn’t take. It was my fault, and I was the one to put her out of her misery. I was broken and weak. So when Kate came to me, acting nice, already knowing what I was, saying she loved me for who I was, I... was weak. And I let her in. And she took away almost everything else I loved, because she could. 

“And I never told Laura because I feared if she did I would lose the last person I had. Which is why I gave myself up for her. I would do anything to protect her.”

Derek looked up then, at Stiles’ face, and instead of seeing fear or anger or disgust, he just saw an open expression that looked something like awe and sadness. 

Derek swallowed and dropped his gaze.

“I won’t ever let the people I care about get hurt, not again. My life for theirs. That’s my choice.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Stiles asked, breathless, when long moments of nothing passed between them, his fingers clenched in the blanket.

Derek shrugged and then looked up at him, a terse smile on his face. “Eat,” he instructed, nudging the plate of cooling food before he stood and left, ducking into the bathroom to have a minor freak out.

Why indeed.

* * *

Derek and Stiles skirted around each other for the rest of the night, but come morning, Stiles was back to his normal smiling self, not giving Derek any indication that he felt awkward or uncomfortable around him. 

Derek continued compiling facts and ideas about the beast in the old math notebook as he thought about them, always storing it safely in the bedroom in case the beast got snoopy in the night and discovered his thoughts and ideas.

The best he could figure, it was a druid or druid-magic user that had gone dark. Maybe it was half-supernatural creature-half-druid and that accounted for the mountain ash avoidance. It had a corporal form, but only at night, which was the strangest part of it to Derek. Was it just lying in wait in the forest until night when it dragged Stiles to the attic and then committed nefarious deeds? He didn’t think it forced Stiles to do anything, because Stiles had never said anything about it, but he did still look exhausted and Derek encouraged more mid-day naps, even just on the couch. 

Though, it had power, so maybe it did make Stiles do things for it but made him forget come morning? There were just too many variables, and Derek realized he was probably asking questions whose answers would not help him solve the big issue: how to defeat it.

He had strength in spades, but he had no control over magic. Maybe, if he could find a way to trap the beast, maybe in mountain ash, it would give them enough time to figure out how to destroy it. 

That was the best plan he had, and it wasn’t even one he could accomplish. But Stiles could. Not that Derek wanted him anywhere near the supermoon ritual in sixteen days, but it may be their only chance at survival.

Derek hadn’t presented the idea to Stiles, remembering the fear Stiles had shown him that first day of questioning. No, better to ask if only necessary.

Maybe Laura found Deaton and he could do it, and Stiles could stay far, far away.

Other than being its captive, Stiles had nothing to do with the beast, and Derek prayed to the moon it would stay that way.

* * *

Derek tucked himself into a corner of the couch and cracked open the book he’d started earlier this morning after finishing the last one. The bedroom book shelves were packed, but he’d been making his way through the mysteries. The one he was on now was one of the Sherlock Holmes books. Derek didn’t know what order they originally went in, so he just picked the one with the most interesting title. 

Stiles perched himself on the arm of the couch suddenly, his thigh pressed against the side of Derek’s head. “New one?” he asked.

Derek hummed in answer, flipping the page.

Stiles leaned forward, bracing himself on Derek’s shoulder. Derek glanced back to see Stiles’ eyes roaming over the exposed pages of the book, his mouth turning over words extremely slowly.

Derek recalled a conversation, on one of the first days he’d spoken to Stiles, about the books and if Stiles had read any. Stiles had thrown out some excuse, but Derek could see now it wasn’t an excuse at all.

“Would you like to read with me?” Derek asked.

Stiles froze and looked at Derek with wide eyes. “Um,” he squeaked. “Thanks, but—”

“I can read aloud, if you’d prefer. Come, sit.” Derek tugged on Stiles’ arm braced against him, forcing Stiles to pitch forward. He spilled over the arm of the couch and into Derek’s lap, torso wiggling against Derek’s shoulder. Derek smothered his laughter as he slipped his arm around Stiles’ waist and righted him, pulling him fully onto the couch. He sat up, giving Stiles the room to lean against his side and still stretch his legs out across the rest of the couch.

“You’ve been cleaning all day, you smell of lemons, and your fingers are definitely pruning. Relax. Close your eyes. I’ll read. Entertainment without the eyestrain.”

Stiles let out a strangled laugh, looking pained. Still, he didn’t look away from Derek, and Derek was suddenly very away of how intimately they were pressed together. 

Derek pressed a hand over Stiles’ face, covering his eyes, and the younger man squawked. 

Derek rolled his eyes and flipped back to the beginning of the book. He wasn’t that far into it anyway.

“Ehem. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter One. Mr. Sherlock Holmes. _Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before...”_

Stiles slowly began to relax against him, and when Derek had to flip a page, removed his hand from Stiles’ face, pleased to see Stiles had indeed closed his eyes. 

Derek read on.

_“...And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a boot striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming nearer and nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner and cocked the pistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had an opportunity of seeing something of the stranger. There was a long pause which showed that he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps approached and a shadow fell across the opening of the hut. “It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,” said a well-known voice. ‘I really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.’”_

Stiles gripped Derek’s arm. His eyes were open once more, and he looked at Derek with a grin. “It’s Sherlock, isn’t it?”

Derek, who had already flipped to the next page, where Chapter Twelve: Death on the Moor, confirmed Stiles’ suspicions, but reading was all about patience. “I feel like the grandfather in The Princess Bride. Are you going to let me finish, or would you like to write the rest of it?”

Stiles’ jaw dropped. Maybe he never expected Derek to make a Princess Bride reference. Derek arched an eyebrow. Stiles’ face made some complicated pass of emotion before he smirked and replied, “As you wish.”

Derek swallowed thickly and looked back at the page and continued reading.

“ _’... And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for Les Huguenots. Have you heard the De Reszkes? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini’s for a little dinner on the way?’_ ”

The sun was low in the sky by the time Derek came to the end of the book, and Stiles had moved so that he could now see the pages as Derek flipped them, eyes tracking across the page as Derek spoke. 

Derek lowered the book to his side, letting it fall shut. “The end.”

Stiles turned his head to say something, his mouth opening on an inhale, but he choked on it when his nose brushed against Derek’s at the motion. He hadn’t realized they were that close. 

Derek also had felt a hitch in his breath.

Stiles’ eyes widened and he breathed, “The sunset.”

And the day was over, just like that.

“Thank you, for reading to— with me. We should do that again,” Stiles said as he lined the doorway with mountain ash.

Derek thought about the two weeks left until the supermoon, wondered if “again” would be possible.

“We should,” he said, despite his doubts.

Stiles’ tight smile told him he was aware of the countdown, and soon he was alone for the night, in the dark and cold, hearing the grating chuckling of the beast at the end of the hallway. 

* * *

He didn’t realize they had even less time than that.

* * *

Derek’s spine snapped to attention, and he almost tripped on his ascension of the stairs, Stiles stumbling into his back, as he heard the crack of a howl shake the house. He felt it in his bones.

It was Laura. And she was in trouble.

“ _Laura_ ,” Derek breathed, fear creeping into his voice. “She’s in pain.” He looked at Stiles, feeling lost and helpless. 

His Alpha was crying out for her Beta’s support, and Derek could do nothing. The banister cracked underneath the force of his grip.

Stiles matched his terrified look with one of his own, jar of mountain ash in hand. He stared down at it and then looked back up at Derek, determination overcoming his features. 

“Go to her,” Stiles said.

Derek nearly collapsed in shock. “What? Stiles, are you insane?”

“If I line the room with the ash, the beast will never know you’re not in there,” Stiles said, but his eyes darted away from Derek’s for a moment, and Derek knew the tick as a sign of Stiles lying, more more so not believing his own words.

The beast would know. Of course it would.

Laura howled again, and the banister broke, leaving shards of wood in Derek’s clawed hand. 

“Look at you,” Stiles demanded, voice loud and tight. “You need to go to her. You have to.”

“But if I leave, then the beast might—”

“Laura is _already_ in trouble. You can’t worry about your deal with the beast.”

Derek had actually been about to argue that the beast might hurt _Stiles_ , not Laura, but Stiles did have a point there as well.

Still, Derek hesitated. “Lock yourself in the room. Protect yourself.”

“I’m safest pretending nothing is amiss. Go to Laura. By the time tomorrow night comes, well, we’ll get there when we get there. But we can survive one night pretending.”

Derek hesitated and Stiles growled under his breath, shoving Derek down the stairs. “Go!” he shouted.

Stiles sprinted up the stairs, and Derek assumed he was lining the room with ash. Derek headed for the door and took a deep breath as he opened it. 

Outside, the sun was settling slowly beyond the horizon, the cool wind of the night whipping the trees. It wasn’t yet the unnatural cold of the beast. He still had time. Not much, but time.

“What are you waiting for?” Stiles shouted with a hiss as he descended the stairs to find Derek still in the open doorway. “Go to her!”

“I’ll be back for you, I swear,” Derek promised, reaching out and wrapping a hand around Stiles’ wrist, squeezing it tight. “I swear.”

Stiles looked on the verge of angry tears, lips pursed, but he still managed a smile. “Be safe, Derek, that is all I ask. Get as far from here as you can. You have a minute, maybe less. I’ll do everything I can here to give you time.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Stiles,” Derek begged, not wanting to let go.

Stiles pried Derek’s hand off of his wrist and pushed him onto the front porch, never leaving the entryway. 

“I dragged you out of that basement, and that was pretty stupid of me. I think stupid is my thing,” Stiles said. “Now run!”

Derek couldn’t resist the pull of pack any longer, and with a final look at Stiles, Derek ran. 

He heard the slam of the front door behind him, and then he only heard his breath as he panted and ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards Laura, towards where she had called for help, deep in the preserve. 

His breaths became visible in front of him, and Derek knew his time was up, the chill settling into his bones. 

Derek wanted to howl back to Laura, let her know he was coming, but if the beast heard it, it would know he was out for sure, and then Stiles would be in further danger. His silence now was the best way to keep Stiles safe.

So he ran, and ran, and ran.

* * *

_Stiles slammed the door shut, and the jar of mountain ash tumbled form his lax fingers, thumping to the floor, shockingly not shattering on impact, just spilling over the laminate._

_He fell to his knees and stared at the base of the door, vision swimming, and he counted his breaths._

_He only got to thirty-seven before his world went black and he felt his breaths choke out of him._

_“So,” the beast said in a voice Stiles never wanted to hear. “You let him go.”_

Yes _, he admitted, because there was no use in lying._

_“Shall we go chase him down? I’ve always loved a game of cat and mouse. Or, shall we say, wolf and f-”_

I’ll make you a deal _, Stiles declared, deciding on the spot it was time to make his final stand._

_Four months. It was time. Derek was... No more thinking, just do._

_“Oh really?”_

_Hearing his own voice purr like that would never not be unsettling. But Stiles figured he should get used to it._

Use me. If you let him go, you can have me.

_“Interesting...”_

_Stiles wondered if this would feel like dying. He hoped it would be quick. But painless didn’t really seem like this beast’s MO._

I won’t fight you anymore. I’ll give in.

_“At the risk of losing my most powerful sacrifice? You think you’re worth that?”_

You need me _, Stiles asserted._ Without me, you can’t have it all. I know what you need, and it can’t be done at night.

_“You are a clever one, Stiles, outwitting a fox. I knew I chose a good host.”_

Is it a deal? _If Stiles was going to die, he’d rather do it soon._

_“I swear to not go after Derek Hale, or Laura Hale, I’ll throw in that freebie for you, and I’ll even release your father as a show of good faith. Does that suit your desires, Stiles?”_

I agree to this deal.

_“Then you have now become something that everyone has but no one can lose.”_

_Stiles could feel his face splitting into a nasty grin._

_Stiles had become very good after over four months of evenings of riddles._ A shadow.

_“Precisely.”_

* * *

Free from the binds of the house, Derek felt his senses come back online, and as he approached Laura, he could hear her heartbeat, smell her anger and fear. And her blood.

There were also others around, several people, and the smell of wolfsbane.

Derek slowed as he neared the clearing and ducked behind trees to try and get a better view of the situation.

Laura was crouched down, clutching her shoulder where an arrow had been embedded, but she looked pissed more than hurt, red eyes flashing and fangs mashing at the three hunters in a semicircle in front of her.

Derek froze, blood running cold, when he recognized one of the women.

“I always love when I go hunting and I get an even bigger haul than expected, don’t you?” Kate cooed towards one of the other hunters who just grunted in response.

There was another woman on her other side, crossbow aimed at Laura still, but she looked young, closer to Stiles’ age, and though her aim never wavered, she had a skeptical look on her face, aimed at Kate.

“We came to find a beast and got a monster too!”

“The monster here is _you_ ,” Laura spat.

Kate simply tilted her head to the side and cocked her shotgun. Derek didn’t have to guess: there were wolfsbane bullets in the chamber. 

“Now, see, I missed you last time.”

Laura snarled, and Derek realized with a jolt Kate was talking about the fire. 

“I was too eager to get started, jumped the, hah, _gun_ a little. But I can fix that up right now.”

Kate leveled the shotgun at Laura, so Derek pounced.

He took out the hunter closest to him, and the man was unprepared for a swipe from the side, and he crashed into a nearby tree and fell to a slump at the base, unmoving.

The other hunter, the young one, shouted in shock and shot an arrow at Derek, and he barely dodged out of its path, swiping out at Kate’s legs with his claws, but she danced back out of the way.

She cackled as Derek hastened to Laura, snapping off the stem of the arrow and getting her to stand. “Aw, Derek too! I guess this really is a good deal! I’ll take care of you both and then take down the beast. I’ll be a hero to Beacon Hills.”

“All you will be, Kate, forever, is a _murderer_ ,” Derek spat at her, his anger and frustration overriding his panic at seeing her again. 

“Kate, what is he talking about?” the young hunter asked. 

Kate raised a hand to silence her, and the girl flinched back, her jaw working, clearly upset.

Derek detected two more heartbeats, besides the man passed out. He just hoped they were on their side, or a neutral party. Going by the smell of herbs and gunpowder, he feared otherwise.

Derek tried to stall for time, at least to help Laura regain some of her strength. It was clear she had been running for a long time and was exhausted.

“Hunters have a code, right?” Derek scoffed. “Not Kate. She’s above the code. She’ll kill _human children_ to get an advantage.”

“Humans born from monsters,” Kate clarified.

“Werewolves aren’t monsters, Kate.”

She raised her shotgun and leveled it with Derek’s temple. “Neither can survive a bullet to the brain.”

“Kate!”

Kate didn’t flinch, but she also didn’t pull the trigger at the sound of someone new calling her name.

Derek saw the two figures approach, and he didn’t know whether or not to be relieved when he recognized them both.

The man who spoke was Chris Argent, Kate’s brother, a hunter. The other was Alan Deaton, his mother’s ex-emissary.

“Brother dear,” Kate growled between clenched teeth.

“Dad!”

“Allison, get back,” Chris ordered, and Allison, the young hunter, did as she was directed, stepping towards Deaton who regarded her with a glance but gave no hint on his face as to what team he was on. 

“Lower the gun, Kate,” Chris ordered, which, _huh_.

Kate didn’t listen, though, her finger twitching over the trigger. “They’re monsters, Chris.”

“They’ve done nothing to break the code.”

“They’re working with the beast.”

“That has not been proven.”

“They both walked into its house and one came out. And now so has the other. And both look perfectly fine to me. How does that not scream cohorts?”

Chris faltered, and Derek cursed internally.

“Whether they are guilty or not has not been proven. Lower the gun, Kate.”

“Please, Kate,” Allison added.

Derek saw Kate’s eyes narrow, and he saw the end.

He hit the deck, pulling Laura down with him, as a shot whizzed over his head. Had he hesitated any longer, he would have lost part of his brain.

Derek looked up as soon as he hit the forest floor to see Chris tackle Kate and kick the shotgun away from her reaching hands. Allison raced forward to grab it, hugging it tightly to her chest as Chris wrestled Kate onto her front, arms held behind her back.

“ _Murderer_ ,” Laura growled, and Derek was too relieved to hear her voice to even care about what she was saying. “She did it. She set the fire, didn’t she?” She shouted, “Didn’t you?!”

Kate threw her head back as much as she could and laughed.

“Laura,” Derek whispered, catching her attention, reaching for her injured shoulder. “We need to take care of that.”

“That is where I can be of assistance.”

Deaton was suddenly at their side, knelt down, the case he’d been carrying set down next to him. He unlatched it, and Derek saw several sharp instruments along with several sealed bags of various types of wolfsbane, mostly.

“Alan.” Deaton glanced up at Chris who now had Kate secured. “I’m going to deal with this. Fill them in. We will meet in two hours at yours.”

Deaton nodded, and Chris dragged his sister away, and Derek watched the scene with glee. Allison followed them slowly, the now conscious male hunter with an arm slung over her shoulders, glancing back at Derek every few feet until they were out of sight.

Derek looked back down to see Deaton had finished cleaning Laura’s wound, burning away the remaining poison from the arrow’s bolt. Laura looked much better now, color returning to her face, though it was still pinched in pain.

“An inch south and that may have been irreparable, but you are lucky, Ms. Hale.”

“Not feeling so lucky right now, Doc.”

Deaton glanced at Derek. “Any wounds?” Derek shook his head. “Good.”

Laura snapped her head over to him and her eyes widened, like she was seeing him for the first time. “Derek! What are you doing here?!”

“You needed me,” Derek replied. 

“How did you escape the beast?”

“The beast wasn’t there. Stiles helped me get out and trick the beast into thinking I never left. Hopefully we still have until tomorrow night before it realizes my absence.”

“Stiles?”

“The sheriff’s son?” Deaton asked at the same time as Laura.

Derek nodded. “Yes. The beast kidnapped him too, said he was hiding the sheriff somewhere and that if Stiles didn’t cooperate, he’d hurt him. Stiles was sure he was being save— saved for another sacrifice. The beast was planning it for the next full moon, which is why I’ve been gone this whole time.”

“Wait, you never saw the beast?” Laura asked. “Last I saw you, you were strung up in the basement with mistletoe and then I was suddenly kicked out of the house and I couldn’t get back in.”

“There is much to discuss on both sides, here, but I think we better do it elsewhere,” Deaton suggested, snapping closed his case and moving to stand. 

Derek definitely had a lot of questions for Laura too, but Deaton was right. 

He followed the man out of the woods, towards a parked van that advertised a veterinarian clinic.

“You’re a vet?” Derek asked.

Deaton nodded. “Dr. Alan Deaton. I’m sorry we didn’t get formally introduced.”

“I remember you,” Derek admitted.

Deaton nodded and sighed, somewhat wistfully. “Indeed. I am just a vet, now. I run the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, which is where we will be meeting Chris in less than two hours, so we should get moving so we can get our story together.”

Once they arrived at the clinic, Derek started on his side of the story, allowing Laura to paw over his arms and shoulders, searching for invisible injuries. He told them about Stiles and he told them about what he’d learned regarding the beast. Deaton found this especially interesting and was making notes as Derek spoke.

“A druid who partakes in dark ritual magic like sacrifices is known as a darach. And nearly everything seems to connect, however there is no reason they would also not be able to manipulate mountain ash.”

“Unless it is part supernatural creature, like a shifter,” Laura suggested, which Derek added he had also assumed.

Deaton hummed. “Perhaps. But something doesn’t seem right with that. It’s too easy of an answer. I’ve dealt with a darach before, and as powerful with magic as they are, they are still as mortal as a human. No, I think it’s something else.”

Derek sighed heavily and reigned in his urge to slam his forehead on the metal exam table they were leaning over.

“How did you find Deaton?” Derek asked Laura, after a moment of silence.

“He found me, actually,” Laura admitted. “After failing to get back into the house, I started going door-to-door, asking people what they knew about the beast. Most people didn’t want to talk, but a few admitted what they’d felt. All of the occurrences happened at night, and none of the torture victims had yet to regain their ability to see, hear, or speak, so it wasn’t a curse that faded with time. This was long-range and powerful. The weirdest thing was the fact that there was a fourth victim of the sacrifices that survived who swore, up and down, that the beast had spared him on purpose. He watched the beast cut the other three down, was forced to, and then left to lie in their pools of blood, screaming for help until his throat was raw.

“That’s when Deaton found me. He heard I’d been going around asking questions. I guess people recognized me as a Hale, because it sort of became the new gossip. They needed something positive to talk about, I guess.”

Deaton took over, adding, “So when I approached Laura, she told me about your interaction with the beast, and since they we have been researching it. But we hit a bit of a, er, _roadblock_.”

“Hunters,” Derek growled.

“Yes,” Deaton agreed. “The Argents arrived, apparently having heard about the beast, and wanted to be the ones to take it down because they have the most experience. But they quickly heard about the Hale in town as well, so—”

“Kate started stalking me,” Laura spat. “I was good at avoiding her, but she snuck up on me today, her little niece along for the ride apparently.”

“Chris and I have interacted in the past. His daughter is new to the operation, so don’t be too harsh on her. He has always abided by the code. I truly believe he is only here to save this town from the beast.”

“I’ll only work with him once Kate is gone,” Laura said, and Derek nodded. “She should be in prison, or gutted for what she did to my family, to _Derek_.”

Derek felt his breath catch in his chest. Laura _knew_. 

Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Derek and Laura both heard a bell tinkling at the front of the store. Someone had just walked in.

Deaton stood tall and exited the exam room. Derek looked at the clock on the wall. It was after eight, so not yet curfew, but would could be at a vet’s this late?

“Can I help you?” he heard Deaton ask before he suddenly inhaled, “Sheriff Stilinski!”

Derek tripped on his way out of the exam room, rushing to the front.

Right in the entrance stood a tall man with graying hair, a dirt-stained uniform, and a shocked look on his face.

“I don’t… know how I got… here,” Sheriff Stilinski admitted. “I was locked away in a...in a something. Underground, I think. My son kept bringing me food, but he never talked to me. Stiles, do you know where he is?” The man’s eyes locked on Deaton. “Deaton, right? Have you seen my son?”

Derek was confused. Stiles brought him meals? 

“Sheriff, I believe we have a lot to talk about. Please, come with me. We can get you some clean clothes, you can wash up, and then we’ll talk about Stiles.”

“Is he okay?” The sheriff demanded.

“He was fine when I saw him a few hours ago,” Derek said, and Laura was the only one would could detect the small lie in his heartbeat.

The sheriff seemed to deflate at that, and nodded. “Okay. Yes, clothes would be good. Washroom?”

Deaton pointed it out, and the sheriff walked past the three of them. 

Derek and Laura shared a look. They had less than an hour before Chris showed up. Now they had to rehash the story to the sheriff.

“Does he know about werewolves?” Laura asked Deaton in a whisper.

Deaton shrugged. “He’s the sheriff. If he knows, he’s never said anything.”

_This’ll be fun_ , Derek thought.

* * *

It was not fun, Derek decided thirty minutes later when a clean Sheriff Stilinski was now in the exam room with them, fully filled in and looking insanely pissed off.

“You just left my son alone with that beast?” he yelled at Derek.

“I had to save Laura! And before I came, he had been spending _months_ alone with it. There was nothing I could do. He _told_ me to go.”

Derek knew his argument was weak. He didn’t believe it either.

“What’s done is done,” Laura snapped, and they all looked at her. “What we need to do now is plan. When Chris Argent arrives, if he’s willing to give up Kate to the law to be prosecuted, we will discuss further options with him.”

“If he isn’t?” Stilinski asked.

Laura’s eyes flashed red. “Kate will never make it out of Beacon Hills. It’s in the law’s best interest to see it through.”

Stilinski straightened up, nodded once, and that seemed to end the argument.

Argent showed up within ten minutes, his daughter on his heels. They were alone.

The first thing Chris said was, “Kate will no longer be associated with the Argent family. She will be turned over to the police tomorrow morning in Beacon Valley with proof of her crimes. Allison and I both have signed witness statements testifying she admitted to the deed to both of us along with records of her bribing the fire chief to declare it an accident.”

Chris spoke to Laura, but when he finished, his eyes moved to Derek. “May we proceed?”

“Allison?” The sheriff exclaimed, staring at the teenager in shock.

She looked abashed for the first time, which looked odd on her strong features. “Hi Mr. Stilinski. Um, sorry?”

“You know each other?” Laura asked.

“She’s dating Stiles’ best friend. Or, was, before they moved. You came back because of the beast?”

Argent nodded. “Yes. It’s what we do as hunters. Allison, because she is now a legal adult, is training with us.”

The sheriff looked gobsmacked. 

“Let’s focus on the current crisis, shall we?” Deaton suggested.

“We accept your terms, Argent, as long as they are seen through,” Laura stated, and Argent nodded stiffly. 

“We will follow though.”

“The beast is a as of yet unknown creature, humanoid in nature, that uses druidic magic. It has taken three lives in a sacrificial manor, and a fourth victim left tortured. Several have been tortured since and left with various sensory ailments.”

“Darach,” Argent said, and Deaton’s eyes sparkled.

“I believe that is what it wants us to assume.”

“What does that mean?” Derek demanded.

“I think the beast is putting on airs as if it is a druid gone dark, ritually sacrificing for power. But it clearly had a lot of power to render the town helpless and keep it that way. One ritual sacrifice months ago would not sustain that kind of magic.”

“Even with a Nematon?” Derek asked.

“Yes, even with a source of power. That would indeed make it stronger, but for something to give, it must take. And the more it gives, the more it must take. So the de-escalation to torture is confusing.”

“Sheriff, you said you were being kept underground, right?” Laura asked, and the man nodded slowly. “If the beast is using the Nematon, wouldn't that be the perfect place to hide someone? We may be able to find clues there. If it hid a person there, whos’ to say it wouldn’t hide something else.”

Deaton hummed, clearly thinking it over. “It’s a definite possibility. We would have to wait until morning to check, when the beast has no power.”

“We need a plan,” Chris said. 

“I was in that house until a few hours ago and the beast only appeared when the sun was fully set and was gone at the sun’s rise,” Derek spoke. “That leaves us a good chunk of tomorrow to do searching. In that time, I can go back to the house, get Stiles out of there, and formulate a plan of attack before the beast arrives.”

The sheriff was clearly on board with that plan, but Argent and Deaton didn’t immediately jump on ship. 

Allison stood in the back of the room, observing and avoiding the sheriff’s eyes. 

They laid out the facts, what they knew, and what they suspected several times over the next hour, bouncing ideas back and forth. But it got to a point where they were all clearly exhausted and making no further strides.

“If we want to get a move on at first light,” Allison spoke, all of them turning to look at her at once, “We need rest. We should search the Nematon and the house for sure, so we will split into teams tomorrow. Meet here at, say, five thirty, and we will discuss logistics then.”

No one wanted or could disagree with her plan, so they all nodded.

“Sheriff, I’ve been staying at the Beacon Inn. You’re more than welcome to join us,” Laura offered.

“Well, considering the beast is occupying my house, I should take you up on that.”

Derek stopped short. “Wait, _your_ house?”

“Yes,” The sheriff replied, “Stiles didn’t mention that?”

“No... he didn’t...”

In fact, Stiles made it seem like he’d never been in that house prior to his abduction. 

“So the garden, that’s—”

The sheriff smiled softly. “Ah, yes, my wife’s garden. Stiles kept it up after she passed. He, uh, still working on it, then?”

“Yeah,” Derek said dumbly. “Almost every day.”

So the room he’d been sleeping in... that was Stiles’ room? Derek felt his face heat for no reason. All those books, too, were Stiles’. 

But why hide that from Derek? 

Laura offered her room for the sheriff and bustled her and Derek into the one she’d for some reason kept for Derek. Maybe it had ben wishful thinking, that any day he’d just pop up. He probably would have done the same thing, if he were in her situation. 

As soon as they were alone, Laura wrapped arms around Derek’s shoulders and pulled him in to a bone-crushing hug. He felt her shake in his arms, and he realized with a horrible jolt she was crying.

“Why didn't’ you tell me?!” she wailed into his chest, soaking his shirt.

(He was wearing Stiles’ clothes!!!)

Derek opened his mouth to ask what she meant before it hit him. _Oh_.

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” he admitted. “I couldn’t lose you too. If you found out it was my fault—”

“No!” she shouted, pulling back and locking teary eyes with his. “No it was _not_ your fault, you idiot! I _knew_ something was going on with you, and I’d seen her around town, and seen her looking at you, and I should have pieced it together. If it was your fault, it was mine too for not noticing.”

“No, Laura, no, it’s not,” Derek assured her, hugging her once more. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. You did nothing wrong, okay?” She sniffled. “You are a _victim_.”

Derek buried his face in his sister’s hair and tried not to cry. 

“Thank you,” he choked out, and she just shook her head.

“I love you, Derek, always. And I’m proud of you for standing up to her. Thank you for saving me today. I don’t know what would have happened had you not gotten out.”

Derek tried not to make his sudden tense muscles obvious to Laura, but she was his Alpha, so of course she did.

“What? What is it?”

“I was just thinking... maybe the beast is smart, too. The beast must have known people would try to stop it, that hunters would come. Maybe it saw a way to divert both threats. If I was captured by the beast, and it was just you up against the hunters, you...” Derek didn’t want to say it aloud, that if Laura had died, the Alpha power would have passed to him, and then the beast would have had a supercharged Alpha werewolf to sacrifice, one without a pack, which made him potentially more powerful due to the usual feral status of alone Alphas. “And I don’t think the hunters would stand a chance on their own.”

Laura still had her arms around him, but she was tense now too, thinking over what he said.

“The beast _is_ smart,” she agreed. “But we can use that to our advantage too.”

* * *

It all went to shit immediately.

The sheriff and Allison joined a reluctant Laura as they headed to scope out the Nematon at near six the next morning, the sun peeking over the trees, Derek and Chris, along with Deaton, headed to the house.

The sheriff had wanted to go with them, to see Stiles, but Deaton had convinced the sheriff he was better heading to the Nematon, because that was the likely place of his capture, and he might begin to remember his captivity any other important facts if he went back.

As Deaton pulled up to the neighborhood, Derek could immediately tell something was different. It was a normal morning, but there was still a chill in the air despite the bright beating sun. Yes, it was still early, but the cold necessary to cause the dew on the grass was not like this. 

“I’ll approach the house first, see if I can even get in. If I can, I’ll find Stiles, quickly fill him in, and then we’ll try and get you two in. I don’t know if there’s some protective or otherwise bubble around the house that will keep you out.”

Deaton and Chris nodded, both choosing to lean against the car and watch as Derek trekked across the lawns.

So far, so okay. 

Derek got up to the house. The front door was closed, but he made it on to the porch.

Despite its early hour, Derek had a flashback to when he’d first come here, to rescue Laura, and felt the same as he had then. Apprehensive and scared. 

Derek turned the knob, and it clicked open as he pushed. It was unlocked.

Derek poked his head in and noticed all of the lights were still out. Maybe Stiles hadn’t woken up yet?

“Stiles?” Derek called into the house.

Derek stepped past the threshold, trying to use his senses to seek the younger man out, but they were back to dulled, which was insanely disappointing. 

Derek headed for the stairs and called for Stiles again. 

He heard a creak of floorboards from his right, and he turned to find Stiles seated on the kitchen counter, legs crossed, staring at him.

He was wearing that striped hoodie again; the sleeve ends were all disjointed from him tugging at the seams too much. But what really surprised Derek was that, oddly, Stiles was wearing shoes. He was wearing Derek’s boots, actually.

“Hey, my boots,” he commented, smiling slightly. He met Stiles’ eyes, whose stare had yet to waver, and it was starting to make Derek uncomfortable. “I told you I’d be back for you.”

A slow smirk made its way up Stiles face, and his knees uncrossed as he leaned forward towards Derek. “You did indeed.”

“Laura is fine. There was a fight with some hunters. I’ll fill you in on details later. But... Stiles, we found your _dad_. And he’s okay!”

“Well of _course_ you did,” Stiles said, hopping off of the counter, sauntering over to Derek in a way he’d never seen Stiles move before.

Also, what did he mean by that?

“Huh?”

“I let him go. He’s not necessary anymore.”

Derek blinked. “Let who go? What are you talking about, Stiles?”

“Hey Derek, when is a door not a door?”

Derek felt something slithering up his spine, an icy coldness he didn’t like. “Stiles...”

“When is a door. Not. A door?” Stiles repeated, slowly, inching closer and closer.

Derek backed up. “I don’t know,” he answered.

Stiles smirked, and it was the meanest looking thing Derek had ever seen. He didn’t think Stiles could contort his face that nastily. Derek swallowed thickly. Something was very, very wrong. He needed to get out, now.

“Why, when it’s a jar.”

Stiles raised a hand, an open jar clenched in one fist, and then he threw its contents in Derek’s face in an explosion of white.

Derek coughed and choked on the mistletoe, eyes stinging as he staggered back into the front door, slamming it closed with his body.

He could feel the sting of the crushed bud and taste it on his tongue, and he forced himself not to swallow. 

What the fuck was happening?

Stiles threw his head back with a nasty cackle that reminded Derek of Kate’s unhinged laughter.

And suddenly, it all clicked in to place.

“ _You’re_ not Stiles,” Derek slurred, as best he could with a swollen tongue. He continued to spit mistletoe at the ground.

“Oh, but I am,” the beast declared with Stiles’ voice and Stiles’ face, gesturing with Stiles’ hands. “I always have been.”

“No. No, not always. Just at night.”

The beast sneered. “You are smarter than you look. Too bad it means nothing.”

Derek reached for the doorknob at his back and threw open the door and raced onto the front lawn.

The beast followed him out at a much more sedated pace, seeming to bask in the sunlight. “What a nice change of pace.”

“Stiles,” Derek shouted.

The beast frowned.

“Stiles, if you’re in there, fight it!”

“Stiles isn’t here anymore, Derek. We made a deal, last night.” It grinned. “Right after you left him alone.”

Derek felt his stomach sink, and not because of ingested mistletoe. “No...”

“ _Yes_! Poor Stiles, left alone to face the spirit who hitched a ride inside. I was about to force him to track you down and drag you back, but he begged me not to. Made me a deal, made me promise not to go after you. And he gave himself up; _all_ of himself.”

“You didn’t take Stiles as a threat to Beacon Hills. You took his father as a threat to Stiles, because you need him.” Derek finally understood. 

“And now I’ve got everything I needed.”

Derek could only hope that Chris and Deaton could see this from where they’d parked and waited and were coming up with a plan of intervention, or were at least hearing this conversation and figuring out what this spirit beast was exactly so they could kill it, or exorcize it, or _something_.

Derek took a page out of Stiles’ book and started talking.

“You never needed those sacrifices, did you? You had enough power on your own.”

“I do. Those sacrifices were necessary for me to feed from. Pain, strife, misery, torture,” the beast licked its lips and sighed happily. “ _Delicious_.”

“But the rituals, the herbs, all of that. You don’t need any of that, your power is your own.”

“Right again, werewolf. It was just a fun little game! Throw you off your track. Which really worked. That notebook you kept was quite detailed. Too bad it was completely off the mark. I’ll give you points for trying, though.”

“And Stiles couldn’t say anything about it, because you had his father.”

“It was so _fun_ to spend the night in that fretting body, eating away at the misery and little strength he possessed. Not that there’s much left of that, or him, but no matter, his body is all I need now. And he hid you from me, ha!” The sky rumbled with the threat of rain. “The mountain ash was clever, not that it would stop me if I really cared.”

Derek was starting to grow annoyed as well as angry and hurt. Everything was slotting in to place, all the pauses in Stiles’ speech, his jumping around words, how he never wanted Derek to tell him about his plans. 

And it just made Derek pissed that this man who would give up his body for his father, then give the rest of it up for _Derek_ , was made to suffer as a beast for over four months. Forced to do who knows what horrific acts. 

Enough talking, Derek decided.

The beast had clearly decided that too.

“Within our deal, I promised I wouldn’t go after you. But we didn’t say anything about when you go after _me_.”

Out of nowhere, from the shadows of the front porch, the beast materialized a thin, long katana sword which it swung and swiped out at Derek with expert precision, who barely dodged in time. Seeing Stiles like this was disorienting, and it made Derek hesitate with each move, which he knew could be deadly.

Derek shifted, but he didn’t swipe back. Not that he had much of an advantage, a short range weapon (claws) against a long-range one. He’d have to get in close, and the beast would never allow that. Plus, he didn’t want to hurt Stiles. He had to have hope the man was still in there, fighting. He needed to think. He needed...

But Derek remembered what Stiles had told him, all those weeks ago. The beast respected deals, rituals. It had kept its word and released Laura. And it had kept its word and not gone after Derek or Laura, and had let the Sheriff go. 

Stiles had held up his end of the deal, sacrificing himself, hopefully not permanently, as a host for this spirit beast. Now the beast had to keep its.

So Derek dodged, and dodged, and he continued to duck and roll and jump over every swipe and stab the beast came at him with, until he saw a swipe come down near his shoulder. He braced himself for the pain as he stilled his body and let the blade slice through the muscle and pin him down to the ground. He let out a howl of pain, vision swimming, the sight of the beast in Stiles’ skin with a victorious grin on his face.

But only for a second, because then it twitched and shifted to one of anger, and a crisp clear voice shouted, “No! You’re breaking our deal!”

Stiles’ face twitched once more, and it was so weird to see with Derek’s hazy vision. “Loopholes count, kid. Give it up.”

“NO!”

Stiles’ entire body began to twitch violently, like he was having seizure, and he almost dropped the katana, but then he gripped it tightly on one hand. The other seemed to be fighting against itself, reaching out for the sword while the other was holding it as far away as possible.

“I _own_ you,” the beast hissed.

“I _am_ you,” Stiles countered back.

The reaching hand made contact with the katana, and in one swift motion, the sword arced around and the tip of the blade plunged into his stomach.

Derek watched in horror as Stiles fell to his knees, hands draped over the handle of the katana, as it speared him.

“No!” Derek screamed, jolting up from the ground, but suddenly Deaton and Chris were at his back, stopping him from approaching with arms wrapping around his. So he could do nothing but watch Stiles battle the beast inside while blood dripped down the edges of the blade to stain the grass at his knees.

Stiles’ body continued to convulse, facial features twitching, finally landing on agony as he arched his back and let out a guttural scream. 

Deaton and Chris let Derek go just in time for Derek to reach Stiles’ side and stop him from hitting the ground and impaling himself further.

“Oh God, Oh God,” Derek babbled as he laid Stiles down on his back, the sword jutting out of his stomach. Stiles’ skin was pale and cold. “No, no, no, no.” Derek leaned his head down to hear for Stiles’ heart, but it was hard to make out any noise over the rapid pounding of his own. “Please, no, Stiles, _no_.”

Derek gripped Stiles arm and started leeching pain as quickly as he could. Stiles’ face twitched, his mouth pursed, and then his lips parted on a shaky exhale. And from his lips escaped a tiny ball of light that sputtered as it rose, reveling itself to be a lightning bug.

Two hands reached out over Derek’s head and captured it. In a jar of mountain ash, Derek realized with a jolt, as Deaton’s hands backed away, sealing up the jar tightly. Derek could hear the tiny, angry buzzing as it slammed itself against the glass walls, backing as far away from the collected mountain ash inside as possible. 

He could head a very, very slow thumping.

Derek looked back down. He had his senses back, and that was Stiles’ pulse; there, but very weak.

Derek forced himself to take more of Stiles’ pain. He heard a soft whimper escape the young man, but there was no change in Stiles’ pale color, his moles looking like drops of dry blood against his cheek. 

“Nogitsune.”

Derek startled at the voice, eyes snapping to Chris who stood off to the side, phone in hand, like he’d just finished a call. “A fox spirit, a trickster, feeds off of pain and strife. Very dangerous, very hard to capture, impossible to kill. And yet Stiles managed to fend him off...”

Derek looked back down at Stiles and felt the urge to cry. So he did.

He bent his head over Stiles’ and let his tears fall. “You did it, Stiles. You saved Beacon Hills, and you save me and Laura. You did it. So now you have to save yourself, yeah? Just hold on until an ambulance gets here. Please, just hold on.”

Derek could hear sirens in the distance. 

“Just one more minute, please. Please, I can’t— I can’t lose someone I care about. Not again. Not another one, please.”

“Derek.”

Laura was at his side, and she wiped the tears from his face. 

“He’s going to be okay, Derek. Help is nearly here, he’ll make it through this.”

Derek could hear the Sheriff shouting from less than a hundred feet back as an ambulance rounded the corner. He had just enough time to remember to shift back before EMTs started rushing the scene, and the sheriff followed as Stiles was gently put on to a stretcher, katana and all, and rushed away. Derek watched it all, feeling a detached sort of numbness.

The cut on his shoulder had already healed. He’d forgotten about it, honestly. 

“He’ll be okay,” Laura repeated, and her heartbeat was steady, But Derek knew better than to believe she knew the future.

Derek stared up at the house he’d been “prisoner” in for nearly six weeks.

“Laura...” his voice cracked over her name, and he couldn’t say anything more.

“I know, Derek. I know.”

* * *

The first night, Stiles spent in the ICU, so Derek sat in the waiting room, ear trained on Stiles’ heart monitor, his own rate spiking each time Stiles’ did.

The second night was the same.

On the third, Stiles finally was moved into a regular recovery room, the surgery deemed a success, and now he just had to gradually wake from his medically-induced coma for the surgery and then work on healing with the help of medication and then, later, physical therapy.

It was another two nights of waiting for him to wake up and be fully cognizant of his surroundings that Derek spent in the hospital, this time at his bedside, after hours, having snuck in the window.

He was sure the sheriff knew, but he also knew the sheriff was just as worried about Stiles, probably more so than Derek was, so werewolf protection detail was only an added benefit to Derek’s guilty conscience.

He’d lived with Stiles for near six weeks, and he hadn’t had a _clue_. How dumb was he?

On night six, as soon as he stepped foot in the room, Stiles’ voice greeted him.

“Visiting hours are over, you know.”

“Hence the window,” Derek gestured as he pulled the rest of himself inside and moved to the chair next to Stiles’ bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Run through,” Stiles joked, but it fell flat.

Derek ducked his head and swallowed thickly. 

Stiles’ hand flopped around in his field of vision, and Derek realized Stiles was trying to reach him. He tentatively took his hand and instinctively took some of his pain.

Stiles moaned in relief, and it made Derek feel good, useful. He hadn’t felt useful at all these last few days.

“I’m sorry.”

Derek snapped his head up and met Stile’s gaze. He had a wry smile on his face, but it didn’t meet his eyes. “What for?”

“For not telling you anything. Maybe if I had, we could have—”

“If you had, the nogitsune would have killed either you or me that night. You did the right thing, Stiles. You were keeping yourself and your father as safe as possible. I was the one who should have noticed. I never even looked to see if you actually had an attic.”

Stiles snorted. “We do, and it’s as small as I described it.”

“If I had just looked for the signs—”

“Hey, I hit it well, if I do say so myself.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “That’s not a good thing, Stiles.”

“Ugh, you sound like my _dad_.”

Derek scrunched up his nose, and Stiles mimicked the action before chuckling softly, then wincing, because laughing clearly hurt.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Derek said on an exhale, the words whooshing out of him all at once.

“And you? Is Laura okay?”

Derek nodded. “We’re both fine. And Beacon Hills is aware that it is no longer under threat, though they didn’t know the exact details. And some kid named Scott keeps coming to see you.”

“Really? Man, I need to stay awake for longer apparently. Scott’s my best friend, I’ve mentioned him a few times in passing, but I guess we mostly talked about other stuff, huh?”

Derek ducked his head and nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me that was your house?” he felt compelled to ask.

Stiles tried to shrug his shoulders, but it didn’t work well lying down. “Because then you might realize. If I was disconnected from the property, I was disconnected from the problem. If the problem was on my property, then, well, it’s _my_ problem.”

Derek hadn’t thought of that. 

“You’re really smart,” Derek commented, and he noted Stiles blush.

“So are you. You outsmarted the trickster. That’s not easy.”

Derek shook his head. “I just used its words against it. I had faith you were still fighting, that you hadn’t totally given up.”

“I wanted to,” Stiles admitted, voice barely a whisper. “But I couldn’t abandon all hope yet.”

They sat in silence for a while, and Derek watched as Stiles’ eyelids began to droop.

“Sleep,” Derek instructed. “Maybe we can finally get rid of those eyebags. Did you even ever sleep?”

“Not really,” Stiles admitted with a yawn, eyes sliding shut. “You forcing naps on me was a blessing in disguise.”

Derek didn’t say anything further, just wanting for Stiles to sleep and catch up on all of it he’d missed. No wonder he seemed so tired constantly.

Derek slowly reached out his free hand, the one not still loosely intertwined with Stiles’ fingers, and brushed them over the arch of his nose and up his brown line. He traced the swells of skin under his eyes and willed them to disappear along with Stiles’ apparent bone-deep exhaustion.

At some point, Derek fell asleep too, and only woke when he heard the jiggling of Stiles’ door. He sprung up from his seat, very aware he was not supposed to be there, and ducked into the tiny private bathroom while the nurse came in to mark down Stiles’ readings and follow-through with general check-in duties before leaving again. Derek looked at the time and saw it was nearly six am. 

The full moon, the supermoon, was tonight. And for the first time in weeks he was excited for it. He might even live through this one.

“Derek.”

Derek ducked out of the cover of the bathroom and approached the bed where Stiles was wiggling, like he wanted to sit up, so Derek helped him do so.

“Good morning. You should sleep some more,” Derek instructed, pressing back against Stiles’ shoulders as he adjusted his pillow. 

“Hey Derek?”

“Yeah?”

“You came back for me.”

Derek scoffed. “Of course I did. I said I would.”

“Hey Derek?”

He sighed. “Yes, Stiles?”

“You told me not to do anything stupid, but I did and it worked out anyway.”

Derek fought of the smile, lips twitching. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So I maybe did another stupid thing.” Derek opened his mouth to ask what that possibly could have been with Stiles stuck in a hospital bed and asleep seventy percent of the time. But he didn’t have to wait for an answer.

“I kinda fell hard for this werewolf with trust issues after knowing him for, like, a month, and I know my mouth probably tastes like ass but I really want to kiss him right now.”

Derek felt something explode in his chest, and he inhaled sharply. Stiles’ eyes locked on to his, and he looked nervous, like he didn’t realize Derek was thinking some similar stupid thoughts.

To hell with morning breath. Stiles was on a fluids-only diet right now so it couldn’t be that bad.

Derek leaned forward and took Stiles’ hands, their fingers intertwining once more as they settled over his blanket-covered stomach. 

“Are you sure?” Stiles breathed the words, warm puffs of air hitting Derek’s face as he leaned close.

“Best to not wait out the sunset,” Derek whispered against Stiles’ lips.

“It’s the morning, you idiot.”

“Just kiss me, Stiles.”

Stiles grinned. “As you wish.”

* * *

Tale as old as time, am I right?

**Author's Note:**

> Titled from:  
>  “And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.”  
> ― Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins 
> 
> check me out for more at [redhoodedwolf](http://redhoodedwolf.tumblr.com) on tumblr


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